Foolish Games
by seaglasssoul
Summary: Murder Week is here at the University of Atascadero, sowing distrust and pitting friends against one another. The prize for this year's victor is the chance to meet with former Surgeon General Toshinori, so Izuku is dead set on winning. But there are only so many places to hide, and it's going to take a lot more than luck and immunity-by-nudity to be the last one standing.
1. One Week

A/N: Hello and welcome to my contribution for the 2018 MHA Big Bang! I'll be updating this slowly throughout the day, and coming back to link the wonderful art my partners did for this. Until then, enjoy!

* * *

Izuku skidded around the corner, fumbling for his belt buckle with frantic fingers as he found his balance and threw himself full-tilt towards the dorms. He could hear Kacchan's snarling yells getting closer with every breath, and gritted his teeth before leaping over a hedgerow. Somebody nearby whooped, " _Parkour!"_ but he didn't let the resulting jeers slow him down.

The moment he was through the dorm's double doors Izuku ripped off his shirt, not caring about the mix of startled and appreciative noises he got as he sprinted through the common room but somehow managing to care enough about his shirt to keep a death grip on it.

"You're so fucked, Deku!" came Kacchan's raised voice from _way too close_.

Izuku risked a glance back and confirmed that Kacchan was hot on his trail, shoving students aside in his bid to close the gap.

This was really, _really_ not how he would have liked to spend his Sunday night, but he'd been foolish enough to accept Ochako's offer to grab milkshakes on the first day of Murder Week.

Rounding another corner, Izuku counted three beats and twisted to lob his balled-up shirt at the space directly to the corner's left, and was rewarded with Kacchan's snarl of surprise as it hit him squarely in the face. Izuku took this extra moment of momentum to yank his belt off and throw that behind him for good measure so he could get to work shimmying out of his jeans.

"If you think me seeing your tiny dick will save you, you've got another thing coming," Kacchan yelled from the other end of the hallway, earning himself a tittering chorus of _Run tiny dick, run!_ from the students poking their heads out of their rooms at the noise. "Good luck getting out of your tighty-whities before I kill your sorry ass!"

Well, he had a point - of all the days to wear those Surgeon General boxer briefs his mom had sent him for Christmas last year. Izuku looked over his shoulder again just in time to duck the belt that Kacchan threw back at him. It hit the wall just above his head with a metallic _crack_ , and he resolved to wear belts that were less deadly for the rest of the week.

He reached the stairwell right as some poor student was trying to negotiate the double doors with an obscenely large box in her arms, so he tucked and rolled through the space between the bottom of the box and the floor with a hurried "Thank you!" and began to take the stairs two at a time. If he couldn't make it to his room before Kacchan caught up, he'd have to be as close to naked as possible. He slid a finger under the elastic and grimaced; that's it, no more tight underwear this week, he could live without the extra support for seven days.

"It's game over, Deku!" Kacchan yelled from the flight of stairs below him. "A runt like you can't escape me for long!"

Izuku burst through the doors at the top of the stairs, lungs on fire; why did he think living on the top floor was a good idea? A group of students was talking nearby, so he dove into them, yelling, "Sorry!" over his shoulder as he managed to trip one of them into Kacchan, who had just dashed out. Kacchan stayed tangled up long enough for Izuku to wiggle out of his jeans - he was going to have _words_ with Ochako about these skinny jeans she convinced him to buy - and throw them back at Kacchan as he clawed his way out of the group.

They landed on his face and hung there for a moment, the crotch directly over the bridge of his nose, and Izuku would have laughed if he weren't bolting through the hall in nothing but his Toshinori boxer briefs.

"I'LL SLIT YOUR THROAT, YOU FUCKIN' SHIT!" Kacchan roared from just a few feet away, but as Izuku got his bearings, hope flared in his chest: this was his hall, he might make it after all-!

Sweat was streaming down his back and face and his overwrought muscles were screaming, but it didn't matter because there was his door, there was his safe haven.

He fell into his room and felt the faint gust of air above his head where Kacchan tried to stab him.

"Oh thank god," Izuku whispered to no one in particular, since Shouto was nose-deep in one of his finance textbooks and Kacchan was grinding his teeth on the threshold.

"You're a lucky fucker," he spat, throwing Izuku's jeans at him with enough force to knock him back to the floor as he tried to stand. "Don't think this'll happen again." With that, he stormed off, leaving Izuku to collapse onto the cheap, scratchy dorm carpeting and spend a few moments catching his breath; that was the most he'd had to run since that intramural basketball team his hall had gotten invested in a few semesters ago.

Shouto still hadn't looked up or otherwise indicated that he understood another human had entered the room, so Izuku cleared his throat and said, "Hey, Shouto. How was your day?"

Shouto started and turned blurry eyes in Izuku's general direction. "Oh, hello. I didn't know you were home."

Izuku gave him a thumbs-up from the floor. "I just got back."

"That's nice," Shouto said, tendrils of red and white hair creating a curtain over half of his face as he turned back to his book, either not noticing or not caring about Izuku's state of undress.

Izuku couldn't help but smile; his roommate was not only one of the most diligent students at the University of Atascadero, but also one of the kindest. He'd allowed a struggling freshman club to use him as a fundraiser that, if successful, meant they could dye his hair the school colors of scarlet and white until the end of the semester.

A knock at the door startled Izuku, and Iida poked his head in. "I got a few noise complaints from this hall about- _Izuku!"_ He threw his hands up to shield his eyes. "Why on Earth are you almost naked on the floor? You were the last person I thought I'd have to remind about the campus dress code!"

"Right, sorry Iida, one sec." Izuku got to his feet with minimal groaning and went for the shirt and shorts he'd left on his bed this morning. "You can look again, I'm decent - but _technically_ the dress code doesn't apply to individual dorm rooms, you know."

Iida peeked through his fingers before adjusting his tie and clearing his throat. "Yes, well. I hope you'll be able to keep it down more. Remember, quiet hours are in effect until finals are over."

"I'll keep that in mind," Izuku said, reaching his arms above his head and wincing as his overused muscles twinged. "Are you still free for lunch with me and Ochako tomorrow?"

Iida shook his head with a small frown. "We have an emergency R.A. meeting at that time. Could I catch you two another time?"

"Of course!" Izuku began stretching his legs to preempt the cramps already forming in his hamstrings. "Good luck at your meeting, I'm sure things are rough for you guys with Murder Week."

Iida's glasses flashed as he adjusted them. "Yes, as a matter of fact. It's been quite troublesome. Did you know that already - already! - there have been incidents of cross-campus streaking? I swear, don't these people have _any_ common decency?"

Guilt wriggled uncomfortable in Izuku's gut. "The prize this year is pretty great. They'll get you into that luncheon with former Surgeon General Toshinori Yagi, and have I told you about how he single-handedly saved all those people in that hospital by -"

"Restarting the generators in the middle of a hurricane and then proceeding to help the nurses hook up over a hundred patients back up to life support and/or various IV medications, yes, you've mentioned it quite a few times," Iida interrupted with an indulgent smile. "I can't stop you from participating, but if I catch you doing anything that breaks the rules, I'll be obligated to report you."

"I'll be careful," Izuku promised, jumping a little when his phone buzzed at him from the desk drawer he'd thrown it in this morning.

"I'd better get going anyway. Have a good rest of your night, you two." Iida lifted a hand in farewell and headed back towards his room at the end of the hall.

Izuku dug out his phone and saw a string of texts from Ochako - she could never seem to contain her thoughts to one paragraph and instead communicated in rapid-fire bursts.

[[thanks for grabbin' shakes w/me! :D]]

[[hope u made it back okay]]

[[mina jumped out of a bush and almost killed me! D:]]

[[i was too fast tho. :) I know all the shortcuts around the science building]]

[[anyway u had Kyouka on ur knife, yeah?]]

[[i was gonna meet her at the small fountain by the music hall tmrw before we grab lunch]]

[[how about u come crash the party and get ur first kill!]]

Guess Ochako had an eventful night, too. He tapped out a response.

[[Stay safe! Yeah, that sounds great, I'll be there a little before noon.]]

Ochako's messages reminded him about his target. Next to where he had put his phone in his desk was a small plastic butter knife with the name _Kyouka Jirou_ written on it in red sharpie.

The knives had arrived sometime between three and five in the morning like a gift from Santa's evil twin, slipped under the doors of every junior's dorm room by masked seniors who only shook their heads and mimed _shh_ if you were unlucky enough to catch them in the act.

It was Murder Week at U.A., the fake-blood-soaked time between the last day of classes and the first day of final exams in which juniors were assigned targets to 'kill' by touching them with their eponymous knife. If you succeeded, you won your target's knife and thus acquired a new target, a cutthroat process that continued until only one person was left standing.

Izuku had not been convinced the whole charade was real at first, and had brushed off Ochako's whispered urban legends with the same equanimity with which he ignored Kacchan's increasingly murderous grins. But then the knives were there, and Kacchan was chasing him, and it looked like this was really happening after all.

Sighing, he went to the door to pick up his discarded belt and jeans. There were three ways to be immune from dying in this game: 1) be in your room - killings did not count there; 2) be in the dining hall, because had to eat, the seniors weren't _barbarians_ ; 3) be naked: kills didn't count if you were tagged while nude.

Izuku started at his dressed, contemplative. Guess he'd have to reconsider his wardrobe for the week, but going commando was not something a pre-med student should have on his record; he had to dress with a dignity that would befit his future career, right?

"Why are you holding your belt and pants like that?" Shouto asked, finally closing his textbook and standing to stretch and cover a yawn. "Did you leave them on the floor?"

"Ah, well, it's murder week, so…" Izuku began, not really wanting to explain to his business empire heir roommate that he stripped for a _game_ , but Shouto still looked puzzled, so he took a deep breath and continued: "You're immune from dying if you're naked, and I wasn't sure I'd make it back to the room in time."

Shouto blinked slowly, and it occurred to Izuku that he might not have even noticed the butter knife sitting on the corner of his desk with Tsuyu's name on it. "Oh, I don't really care about the prize. This accounting final is no joke, not to mention my marketing group project that I am running almost entirely on my own. My classmates are incompetent." He frowned at his closed textbook like it could perhaps make sense of his classmates' failings, but seemed to realize he was still in the middle of a conversation. "Anyway, good luck if you're playing."

Izuku hummed in acknowledgement while he put away his clothes. "The prize this year is a spot at that upperclassman luncheon with _the_ Toshinori Yagi. I have to win it, I'd be able to speak to the man who _literally_ got me into medicine and-"

"Before you get going, he's the one on all your posters, right?" Shouto asked, glancing at Izuku's side of the room where two large posters dominated the wall and newspaper clippings of his medical feats filled in any holes.

"Yeah, that's him!" Izuku ran a hand along a framed magazine article that featured an interview with Toshinori after he successfully lobbied Congress to increase funding for Medicare and Medicaid. "I want to be even a tenth the doctor he was. He saved so many lives…I _have_ to win the chance to talk to him."

Shouto began rooting through his drawers for his pajamas, which were silk and had a matching nightcap that he usually put on top of a teddy bear that always sat on the corner of his bed; all Izuku had been able to get out of him was that it was a gift from his mother. "I think your chances are good as long as that loud friend of yours doesn't get the jump on you." He moved to the door where his shower caddy hung on a labeled hook, and grabbed his toothbrush from its equally predetermined location. "I'll keep an ear out and let you know if I hear anything about what he's planning."

"Thanks," Izuku said as his roommate left for the bathroom. He could hear the faint squeaks and clicks of nearby doors being cracked as people checked to see if their target was the one leaving the safety of his room. There was a half-empty water bottle on his desk that he grabbed on his way to get his own toothbrush. He brushed his teeth there, spitting into the trash can in the corner of the room. He'd had a close enough brush with fictional murder today, thank you very much, and would complete his night routine here.

The standard-issue dorm mattress wheezed when he finally fell into bed some time later. Izuku stared at the ceiling for a while and listened to the hypnotic sounds of Shouto's pencil on paper while he thought about all the ways tomorrow could go wrong. Ochako called him morbid and a pessimist, but Izuku just liked to be _prepared_ , and going through contingency plans was the best way for him to feel that way. He rolled over and closed his eyes. Besides, he couldn't let her down.

/

"Izuku, over here!" Ochako waved from her seat on a bench next to one of the quieter campus water features, a fountain set under the shade of a large sycamore tree on the backside of the art and music building.

Izuku hurried over, pulling his fitted baseball cap down to shade his eyes more. Not only did it help with the California sun, it also hid his distressingly identifiable mess of curly hair.

"You all set?" she asked when he reached her. "I told Kyouka I'd let her show me the stuff she's been DJ-ing. I hope you can get her before I open my big mouth and tell her it needs more banjos."

"You're the best," Izuku said, heart rate beginning to pick up as he went through his precise movements in advance. It was strange to be the hunter when for so long it had felt like he was always the hunted.

"Oy! Ochako, you ready to have an eargasm - oh, hi Izuku, didn't think you'd be here." Kyouka was about twenty feet away and approaching with Mina at her side, whose smile had a strange Cheshire cat edge.

Izuku froze, remembering it was Mina who had tried to kill Ochako yesterday.

Kyouka saw him staring at Mina and said, "She said she wanted to talk to Ochako about something, so I told her she should come along. What, is there a problem?"

The tableau held for one more second, one more peaceful, innocent second, and then all hell broke loose.

Mina lunged at Ochako, plastic knife outstretched, but Ochako had already leapt into the water feature and begun wading towards the other side.

Izuku saw Mina hop up onto the edge of the fountain and start sprinting along the rim to cut Ochako off, which made a knot twist in his stomach - stopping her would mean he'd leave Kyouka to possibly run away - but his body was moving before the thought was fully formed.

His legs protested as he jumped onto the edge to follow Mina, but he forced his muscles propel him forward until he was just a few feet behind her. She was almost in striking distance of Ochako, which sent a bolt of adrenaline screaming through his system - she couldn't tag Ochako out, he wouldn't let her! "Sorry!" he yelled as he tackled Mina from behind, wrapping his arms around her waist and twisting so it was his shoulder that hit the stone bottom of the water feature instead of her.

"Thanks partner!" Ochako called over her shoulder as she jogged back over to Kyouka, who was mostly looking put out that they weren't listening to her remixes.

"I wasn't expecting you to work together, I'll give you that one, Midoriya," Mina said after she shoved him back and waded towards the edge of the fountain to wring out her clothing, bubblegum pink hair plastered to one side of her face. "But whatcha gonna do when it's _her_ name on your knife?"

That was the million dollar question, one Izuku had studiously ignored from the moment Ochako suggested they work together. "I hope you're not hurt," he said instead, wincing when he rolled his shoulders. Guess he took the landing a little too hard.

Mina winked at him. "Worry about yourself, fanboy. I can take the heat." With one final look across the water, where Ochako was poised by the stairs, ready to escape into the crowded upper level, Mina held her head up high and walked towards the nearby entrance to the music building. "I know where you sleep, Uraraka. Don't let any bedbugs bite."

"Hey nerds, are you gonna listen to these tunes, or what?" Kyouka was fiddling with a pair of padded, intricate-looking headphones.

Ochako strolled back over, a glint in her eyes that told Izuku she had a plan. "Why don't you let Izuku listen first?" she asked, casual stance and pleasant smile the picture of innocence.

"Sure, whatever, I just have to be in class in twenty minutes - _hey!_ "

Izuku had wasted no time in sliding the knife with Kyouka's name on it down his hoodie sleeve and poking her hand with it when she held out the headphones.

Eyes wide, Kyouka said, "But you had so many chances to kill me earlier if I was your target, why wait - oh, you _sneaky bastard._ And _you,_ " she said, rounding on Ochako, "what the fuck, dude, I _trusted_ you."

Ochako brought a hand to rub her neck, her guilty tell for as long as he'd known her. "Sorry 'bout that. I really did wanna listen to your music."

That seemed to mollify Kyouka somewhat, because she sighed and said, "Come on then, let's get on with it so at least this wasn't a total waste of time." She handed Izuku the knife with her target on it, one Momo Yaoyorozu.

"Thanks," Izuku said, pocketing the new knife. "Sorry for tricking you."

"Eh, I guess it's whatever, it's Murder Week. To be expected." She'd already put her headphones on Ochako, who was bobbing to the beat.

"Ochako, hey." He waved a hand in front of her face to get her attention, and waited while she freed one ear from the headphones. "Wanna grab some food after a few songs - "

"Time to get fucked, losers!" Kacchan landed with a crash next to Kyouka, wearing weird baggy pants and a wifebeater tank that had seen better days.

Izuku was still in shock when Kacchan stood - were those _bright orange Crocs?_ \- and charged at him, plastic knife in hand and manic rage twisting his face into an inhuman mask.

With only a second to react, Izuku ducked into a leg sweep, sending Kacchan sprawling to the pavement. Before he could stand back up Izuku sprinted away, around the music building and up the grassy hill on its long side that led to one of the main quads.

"Not today, fucker!" Kacchan howled from behind him, clawing his way up the hill on all fours like a rabid dog, face a rictus of snarling fury that made the hairs on the back of Izuku's neck stand up. He was closing the ground between them, this might be the end, unless -

Turning quickly, Izuku dodged another swipe from Kacchan's knife and gained a bit of distance by dodging through the crowd of people milling around the library on the west side of the quad. Some fancy footwork and a few scattered choruses of, " _Parkour!"_ had him well on his way along the pathway to his dorm, which was his best bet at this point because the dining hall was in the opposite direction and -

"Where you going, huh?" Kacchan called as Izuku saw the caution tape all over the main entrance. "I have eyes all over campus, you take a shit and I know about it. You really thought you could leave your room and come back so easily?"

Izuku darted towards the side of the building in a desperate gamble that Kacchan wouldn't have blocked those as well, maybe thinking he'd have captured him before then, but no, they were covered in tape too, what to do, what to _do_ -

"So cocky, aren't we, Bakugou?" said a voice not far from them. "You're always so predictable - it's a little sad."

A quick glance over his shoulder revealed that a student with violet-dyed hair - Shinsou, Izuku thought his name was, a quiet pre-med student in some of his classes - was running alongside Kacchan, a plastic knife dancing between his fingers like a scalpel. "Your time is up," he said, a cold smile on his face as he leapt for Kacchan, except - _dear god._

Kacchan stopped abruptly and jumped to the side so that Shinsou overshot him by a few meters and proceeded to _rip his shirt off_ , the thin fabric tearing like cobwebs in his grip. His hands were on his pants next, which he cast aside with almost contemptuous ease, and then Katsuki Bakugou was standing before them as naked as the day he was born.

"What's the matter? Never seen a dick this big before?" Kacchan asked, taking a few unperturbed steps towards Izuku. "If you think I won't kill you while I'm naked, you're more of a dumbass than I thought." He glanced at Shinsou, who seemed to be having trouble keeping his eyes on Kacchan's face. "Keep staring and I'll start charging, pretty boy."

To Izuku's surprise, Shinsou _blushed_ and looked away. "Have fun being an exhibitionist."

Izuku didn't wait to hear Kacchan's retort. He dashed around to the other side of the building where there was a small side door that no one really used because it was farthest from all the main paths. With any luck, this door would have escaped Kacchan's notice, though there were also a few pillars and jutting sconces he could use to climb to the second story if need be.

Thankfully, this door was untouched. Izuku could hear Kacchan's colorful yelling behind him, but his room was on this side of the building, so there wasn't the same need to run for his life.

Izuku made it back to his room without further trouble, and heard Kacchan's door slam through the floor. His life would be much more miserable if they lived on the same floor.

Shouto had his face flat on his desk when he came in, which, while not _unusual_ , was still somewhat alarming. "You okay there?" Izuku asked, placing his newly-won knife with care into a hidden drawer in his desk.

"Define okay," Shouto replied, voice muffled.

"Not experiencing undue physical or emotional distress?" Izuku said, approaching Shouto's desk to see if there were any clues about his mental state there.

"Oh. Then no, I guess I'm not okay." Shouto rolled his face over to look at Izuku out of one eye. "Father is coming to visit in a few days, and I am not at all ready to deal with him reminding me how far I have to go and how everything that I am is because of _him_ , so I should be appropriately _grateful._ "

Izuku's stomach clenched; Shouto's father was a severe, intimidating man who donated heavily to the school, and had effectively ostracized his son by making public announcements about his elite status. Shouto had indeed seemed cold and unapproachable, but that all changed after a high-adrenaline clash during hall games freshman year in which Izuku clutched out a win through some dodgeball gymnastics Shouto had not seen coming. "Yeah, that _is_ stressful," he said, awkwardly patting his roommate on the shoulder. "I'll be here for moral support, if there's anything I can do."

A sound somewhere between a groan of despair and a death rattle came from where Shouto's face was still pressed to his desk.

One, then two, then a steady stream of buzzes emanated from Izuku's pocket, so he left Shouto to collect himself and went to see what Ochako wanted.

[[hey! didja make it out okay?]]

[[katsuki sure is scary, huh? kinda like an attack dog]]

[[but thanks for savin me, means a lot!]]

[[i'll help you w/ur next person too]

[[who is it, btw?]]

[[o ps, mina was hangin outside my room, so I climbed in thru the window LOL]]

[[bet she wasn't expectin that!]]

Smiling, Izuku typed his reply. Every time she talked to him, he was reminded of how glad he was that she had essentially adopted him into their group of friends.

[[Yeah, I made it back fine. Looks like Shinou has Kacchan's knife, and he interrupted our chase. My next target is Momo Yaoyorozu...isn't that your roommate?]]

He barely sent it off before the three little dots appeared.

[[YEAH i can def help u get her!]]

[[mk this is a SECRET but she's into ur roomie]]

[[she's a chem major but her minor is in business and they had a class together last semester and she's had her eyes on him ever since]]

[[think u could hold a study sesh at ur place and i can bring Momo over?]]

[[i know she'd be all over it]]

A study group, huh? Izuku brought a hand to his chin. That would be a plausible excuse to get her within striking distance, and she'd have her guard down since they'd be in a supposed safe zone. But did she even care about the game? How suspicious should he be?

[[Go ahead and ask her if she's interested, and let me know what she says. Thanks again!]]

[[aye aye! i'll hit u up when i talk to her :)]]

Izuku put his phone down and allowed himself exactly one moment of self-pity about what lunch would be like. The dining hall, though another safe zone, was a ten minute walk from his building, and Kacchan must be itching for another chance to kill him. His threat about having eyes everywhere was not an idle one; as captain of the Ultimate Frisbee team and sole reason their university trounced any school who challenged them, he was worshipped by a not insignificant portion of the campus population. Izuku had already seen a few teammates and underclassmen scrounging around outside the entrance to the dorm, which meant he'd have to be extremely careful about when he left.

His stomach gurgled. He'd meant to go stock up on ramen and granola bars at the closest convenience store, but he still faced the issue of Kacchan's lackeys. Unless… "Hey, Shouto? Have you eaten yet?"

"No, why?" His head was still on his desk, though it looked like he was gathering the will to sit up.

"Kacchan has guys looking for me, so I'm not sure I can make it to the dining hall in one piece. Think you could sneak me back a takeout container or two?"

Shouto finally sat up and turned his frowning face towards Izuku. "But that's against dining hall rules."

"True, but if you're fast, no one will notice, and I could really use some real food this week." He directed his best impression of puppy dog eyes at Shouto. "Pretty please?"

Heaving a sigh that would have been put-upon if it wasn't so full of lingering despair, Shouto said, "Okay, fine. Don't expect me to be back anytime soon, though - some of the underclassman wanted me to teach them some Excel tricks."

"That's all right. Thanks a bunch, you're a lifesaver." A rush of relief made him lightheaded at the fact that he wouldn't need to run for his life twice in one day; he was going to need to spend a good portion of his night stretching as it was.

Something like warmth flickered behind Shouto's eyes as he shrugged on a thin hoodie. "You already saved mine. It's the least I could do."

This was a comfortable argument of theirs, something the ever-scrupulous Shouto couldn't quite seem to let go. "Like I always tell you, friendship doesn't work the way your balance sheets do. You don't owe me anything."

Shouto grabbed his keys from the labelled hook by the door. "Whatever you say," he said, and gave Izuku a rare smile.

The door clicked shut and Izuku was alone again. Alone, and _terribly_ sore. He stared at his biology textbook for a few minutes before grabbing his phone to set an alarm for fifteen minutes. Before he got back to finals studying, a little reminder about the stakes of this game was in order.

He clicked into his browser and only had to type the first two letters of Tonshinori Yagi's blog name before it autofilled. The hubbub over the last few days meant that Izuku hadn't had time to read the latest weekly post, something that hadn't happened since high school when he broke his leg and his mother didn't want him sitting at his desk all day without his leg elevated.

The simple font and straightforward layout always soothed Izuku, made him feel like he was entering a cozy room with friendly faces. Tonshinori's posts were always full of information Izuku craved, the hows and the whys of his decisions in the field interspersed with stories of heroism. It reminded him that goodness was a decision made every day, and that even in a world that could be overwhelming in its horror and pain and sadness, compassion was always a choice you could make.

This post was about one of Toshinori's failed cases, or at least that's what it looked like from Izuku's perspective, since he wasn't ultimately able to save a life. A man in his mid-30s with a terminal cancer had been dealing with increasing pain that left him bedridden and on a constant opioid drip. Toshinori had tried everything he could think of to make the man's life more comfortable, but the pain was unbearable, and finally the man asked about physician assisted suicide.

Izuku paused to take a sip from his water bottle. Naturally Toshinori would come up with a helpful but ultimately futile way to save the man's life, but at least he would have dissuaded the man from suicide.

Except he didn't. With an increasingly furrowed brow*, Izuku kept reading, learning how Toshinori had _accepted_ the man's wishes with no further pushback. A few weeks later, Toshinori left an overdose of pain medication with the man, and he passed peacefully that night surrounded by friends and family.

Izuku's phone began to buzz in Ochako fashion, so he tabbed out of the blogpost and shoved aside all further thoughts about why his idol would help someone take their life instead of try to save it.

[[she's totally down for the study party]]

[[what about tmrw at 7?]]

[[she'll be full after dinner, easier target]]

[[speaking of, u ok w/food? it's rough out there]]

She was always so considerate.

[[Awesome, I'll let Shouto know. And he's grabbing me food, so no worries there.]]

[[good! i have some extra granola bars w/me tmrw in case somethin happens]]

[[don't wanna risk being stuck w/o food!]]

[[Thanks, see you tomorrow!]]

A quick glance at the corner of his screen reminded him that it was two o'clock, so perhaps now he should do some finals studying.

He was deep into a chapter about organ systems when Shouto returned, pockets bulging with fruit and backpack full of tupperware.

"I got you some of everything. Fruit, deli sandwiches, and some of that stirfry you love you much," he announced, replacing his keys on their hook. "There were many minimally clothed individuals in the dining hall."

Izuku accepted the takeout container held together with a rubber band and caught the apple Shouto removed from his cargo pants pocket. "Yeah, that immunity rule is a bit much. I hope you didn't have to see too much you didn't want to."

Shouto shrugged, a massive textbook already open on his desk. "It's all the same to me. Just eat your dinner before it gets cold." One wan smile and he was back to studying, eyes never leaving the book as he rifled through a drawer for index cards.

The apple was a little grainy, but Izuku munched it dutifully while trying to decide what preparations to make for tomorrow night. "Oh, Shouto, we're having a group study session here tomorrow night with Ochako and Momo. Will you be around to join us? Momo has a business minor, and I bet you two could help each other out."

"Sure," came Shouto's absent reply as he grabbed and uncapped a highlighter in one fluid motion.

That settled, Izuku leaned back as far as he dared on his fourth-hand computer chair and contemplated next steps. Would Momo anticipate an attack, and if so, would she come prepared to fight or to run? A faint flush spread across his cheeks as he grappled with what he'd do if a female classmate ended up naked in his hallway; that wouldn't do _at all_.

One deep breath and several sips of water later, he texted Ochako to ask her to let him know if Momo dressed like she might intend to strip so he could make the proper arrangements.

A few texts in quick succession assured him that he'd get at least twenty minutes' notice of her outfit, and, thus placated, Izuku turned back to Toshinori's blog post. It unsettled him, that Toshinori would just give up on a patient and not try harder to save the young man's life. He closed the tab with a firm click and repeated his water bottle and trash can tooth brushing routine, determination to talk to Toshinori burning in his chest. He had to know the why, had to understand what had gone into his decision in order to dispel the seed of doubt that had been growing as he began to wonder if his entire outlook was wrong somehow.

But that would have to wait. Izuku grabbed his physiology textbook and curled up in bed to study until the lines blurred together and he was no longer thinking about the value of a life.


	2. Mind on my sleeve

[[hey, u there?]]

[[anyway, i'm meeting Momo soon for food b4 we come over]]

[[i'll let u know bout the dress sitch then, but r u ready for the KILL? :D]]

[[see ya soon!]]

Ochako's staccato texts broke Izuku out of his half-asleep trance. Getting breakfast had been a nightmare involving three of Kacchan's goons and more bags of manure fertilizer than he cared to think about, and even after his three hot showers he'd needed to spend thirty minutes stretching muscles that hadn't signed up for this.

[[Thanks again! Stay safe!]]

He really was lucky to have a friend like Ochako. Freshman Orientation had been so scary, the people so loud and new and intimidating in how interesting they seemed, and there he'd been, boring and mediocre and singled out by Kacchan's jeering disdain. But Ochako had thrown an arm out to catch him as he tripped over a bundle of wires by the water coolers, and they had been best friends ever since. A small smile touched his lips, remembering nights spent studying on the heavily patched engineering couch after the older pre-meds kicked him out of the science building, and how she'd shoulder-check him whenever he'd start babbling, caught in one of his thought spirals.

"Should I grab some tea, do you think?" Shouto was puttering about the room, tidying up after Izuku had reminded him they were hosting the study group. "What do girls like? Sugar? Should I get some cookies, or maybe they prefer salty things?"

Like Izuku before he'd been adopted by Ochako, Shouto hadn't spent much time with girls - with _people -_ given his father's ruthless parenting. Apparently friends were a time sink in his eyes, a fact that made Izuku grit his teeth and clench his fists when he thought about it for too long. But Ochako had helped there too, standing up beside him that blistering July day when Izuku couldn't take the way Mr. Todoroki spoke to Shouto any longer.

That was also the day Izuku learned Ochako threw a mean right hook.

"I think they've just eaten, so don't worry about that," he said, lifting his feet so Shouto could shove the vacuum under his desk. "You uh, you don't need to clean this much, they're not expecting a sterile environment."

"But father always said that in order to show basic respect to women – or, well, anyone I guess, father is a bit old fashioned – you must make yourself and your space presentable. It's only polite!" he added at Izuku's steadily rising eyebrow. "We're the hosts, it's our _duty_ to —"

"Calm down, we're college students, this isn't a board meeting, _relax_ ," Izuku said, shifting in his chair nonetheless because something about what Shouto said dug at him. _Did_ Ochako think he was slovenly in any way? Had he been being rude without even knowing it for _years_ by inviting her into his messy room or hanging out with her in sweatpants and old tee shirts or—

He shook his head to interrupt this train of thought before he tangled himself in another incapacitating spiral. Ochako still talked to him, so things must be okay enough to get by, and besides, he had a murder to prepare for.

A quick glance around the room confirmed everything was in its place. There was the water glass with the tiny holes in the bottom that he'd offer Momo if Ochako couldn't lure her into the hall a normal way, so it'd spill into her lap and prompt her to head to the bathroom for some paper towels. She wouldn't know that the exits in that hall had been blocked, and that she'd be walking into a dead end.

It was foolproof.

[[looks like ur in the clear!]]

[[she's wearing jeans and a belt and a button down blouse]]

[[the top buttons are open btw and her boobs look phenom, hope ur roomie's ready to be annihilated]]

[[Thanks for the update, see you soon!]]

"Is everything all right? Are they going to be delayed? I could use the time to dust, I can't _believe_ we haven't dusted since the beginning of the semester—"

"They're on time, it's all gonna be fine, and you're going to be a great host," Izuku said, using his patented Client Voice in the hopes it would soothe his roommate as well as it did his elderly patients at his part-time job.

It at least seemed to make him turn to muttering under his breath instead of building himself into a lather, so there was that.

Not long after came Ochako's signature rhythmic knock on the door. "It's us!"

Izuku ushered them in and Ochako made introductions while Momo surveyed the room with eyes that seemed to drink everything in and catalogue it at the same time. Shouto looked uncharacteristically out of his element, eyes a little wide when Momo turned the full force of her appraising gaze on him. She stared at him for a long moment, long enough to toe the line between normal and uncomfortable, and then smiled as if she had seen everything she wanted. The smile only appeared to poleaxe him further, and Shouto practically fell over himself pouring them all some water from the Brita using the untampered cups Izuku had set aside for this purpose.

The study session part of the ruse went surprisingly well. Momo had a sharp wit and an even sharper tongue, but she also had an undeniable warmth that made conversation easy. Shouto managed to get a handle on his strange stuttering long enough to engage in a very technical-sounding conversation with her about some business decision that had him looking at her with what appeared to be respectful awe by the end.

After an hour of this - in which Momo's increasing proximity to Shouto seemed to correlate with a direct inverse correlation to his ability to form sentences - Izuku signaled to Ochako that it was time to try Phase Two. She dipped her head slightly, then said, "Mind if we take a little break? I have some girl issues I need to talk to Momo about."

Momo blinked but acquiesced, and put a hand on Shouto's shoulder while she told him she'd finish her story about her chemistry startup's latest acquisition when she got back. He croaked something that might have been assent and watched her leave with an almost helpless expression.

Once the door closed behind them, Shouto turned to Izuku with a wild light in his eyes. "I think there's something wrong with me. I could not organize my thoughts when Momo spoke, and my eyes were so rudely drawn to her chest. Does this mean I'm a bad person? Am I broken, what's — "

"Sorry, can we talk about this later?" Izuku interrupted, getting to his feet and peeking out the door while sliding the plastic knife with Momo's name on it up his sleeve.

"I, sure, but this is really, really pressing — "

"I'll be right back!" And with that, Izuku slid out the door and down the hall toward the blocked doors by the girls' room. He could hear their voices up ahead, discussing something about Shouto, but he didn't pay it any mind because Momo's back was to him and now was his chance.

"Well isn't this fucking _peachy_ , my prey catches itself." Kacchan strolled out of one of the rooms Izuku had passed on his way down the hall, Crocs squeaking on the tile floor and tearaway pants hanging low on his hips. "Thought you were clever with that door block, huh? Thought my boys wouldn't see you and report back to me? I guess I should be grateful that you wrapped yourself up like a sad little present." He took a menacing step forward. "You're done, dipstick."

Izuku's mind raced. He had effectively boxed himself in, the only exit barricaded by his own hands and the hall ahead too narrow for him to avoid Kacchan's reach. Guess he'd have to fight, or chance trying to dodge that first swipe and hope he could outrun Kacchan.

"Hey, Bakugou. Thought I saw you tutoring Kirishima the other day, care to compare notes? He's coming to me for calc help and it'd be mighty fine to know his learning style." Ochako had wandered over while Izuku had been strategizing, walking nonchalantly past him on her way towards Kacchan. She flicked a small OK gesture at him and tossed her head back at Momo, who was still looking very confused.

Not sure if he'd make it out of this alive, Izuku made the split-second decision to put all of his trust in Ochako and took the two large steps it took to bring him close enough to Momo to poke her with the knife.

"Oh!" she said, as if she'd belatedly remembered the answer to a question after someone else had answered it. "The game! Well, my knife is in my room, I'll have to drop by tomorrow to give it to you. I had honestly forgotten about it, what with finals so soon."

"Oy, fuckwad, what do you think you're doing?" Kacchan's voice rang out behind them, and when Izuku looked back, he could hardly believe his eyes.

Ochako had Kacchan pinned to the ground in some kind of jiu jitsu hold, straddling him in a way that incapacitated his arms. She gave him a vicious smile and said, "Momma and Papa been teachin' me how to defend myself since I was knee high to a grasshopper." She looked up and saw Izuku gaping. "Get the hell back to your room! I can't hold him forever!"

Right. Escape. Not the weird way seeing her on top of Kacchan made his stomach clench. He leaped over the section of floor near the two of them in case Kacchan somehow managed to wriggle out and swipe at him, and settled in at his desk in his room to wait for Ochako. He heard Ochako say something that made Kacchan growl, and a short time later both girls entered the room.

"Whew! Been a while since I've had to restrain someone," Ochako said cheerfully, rolling her shoulders. "Sorry, Momo," she added, giving her a friendly pat on the shoulder. "We really did wanna study with you, the knife deal just made it better for us to host it."

Momo shrugged, her eyes already back on Shouto. "It's fine, I wasn't really into it anyway. Could we do a little more studying tonight? I was in the middle of a story before…"

Izuku nodded, still mostly thinking about the fact that Kacchan had shown up _again_ and that Ochako had needed to save him _again_. He settled back on the floor with his physiology textbook, eyes looking beyond the page as he considered how he could make it up to her.

/

The answer came to him in a dream.

Or, well, kind of. He'd been dreaming he was talking to Toshinori, who instead of leaning in and making Izuku his apprentice like he usually did in these dreams, looked out the window and said, "Son, if you ever wish to know a friend, make them pancakes."

Izuku woke up and immediately texted Ochako.

[[Thanks again for saving me yesterday! To repay you, can I make you breakfast tomorrow? No one uses the kitchens around finals time, and I can set up a distraction to lure away Kacchan's friends.]]

Her reply was almost instantaneous.

[[HELL YEAH]]

[[i love pancakes! ^o^]]

[[…with REAL maple syrup? 0:) ]]

[[i'll show you the real benefits of my degree when i make us the biggest pancake house the world has ever known!]]

Smiling, Izuku grabbed one of the granola bars she'd dropped off the other day and got back to studying, not particularly keen on risking Kacchan's ire before noon.

Morning slid into afternoon, and Izuku was getting hungry enough to want to venture out when there was a knock on the door.

"Coming," he said, remembering with a rush of adrenaline that Momo had said she'd stop by with the knife today.

It was indeed her, smile polite as she scanned the room behind him, probably looking for Shouto, who'd gone to the library before Izuku had woken up. "Here you go, my knife as promised. Good luck for the rest of the game, and would you please pass this on to Shouto for me?" She held out a small, folded piece of paper along with the knife. "For his eyes only," she added, the warning clear in her tone, and then headed back down the hallway.

Dutiful roommate that he was, Izuku dropped the note onto Shouto's desk before attending to the knife. There was no use for any dramatic pause or drum roll moment, so he flipped it over and —

But that couldn't be right.

Ochako Uraraka's name stared back at him in red sharpie like the punchline of the world's worst joke, and no, _no_ , he couldn't do this, he couldn't betray his best friend.

Or could he?

The analytical wheels that never stopped turning began to spit out all the possible ways he could very well stab her in the back. But then his moral compass joined the fray, telling him of course he couldn't do this, they were friends, wasn't that more important than a game? The room was spinning, so he sank into his desk chair and stared at his desktop. Toshinori's smiling face on his background was no solace to him now.

Logically, this was an unavoidable possibility and had been since the beginning. They had both known this might happen sooner or later, and had agreed to help each other regardless out of their mutual desire to see the other do well. What would happen at this point was never discussed, and Izuku couldn't shake the feeling that he was being disloyal to her for not letting her know.

What would a good friend do? Should he let her win? No, that wouldn't be chivalrous; that'd be assuming she was incapable of winning on her own, a thought that almost brought him out of his spiraling thoughts with its sheer absurdity. Should he just tell her? No - that'd imply she needed to know ahead of time, and they both knew she could win just as easily as he could.

His head made a gentle thump as it landed on his desk. The best way to be a good friend was to treat her like any other participant, because anything less would be insulting. They had known this could happen, and now it was up to him to see things through. It looked like his breakfast plans now had the dual purpose of thanking her _and_ removing her from the game. But should he get her _before_ they ate to get it over with, or wait until she'd enjoyed her food and _then_ stab her in the back?

Groaning, Izuku slid onto the floor. Shouto walked in not a minute later, glancing at him with a blank look before stepping over him to reach his desk. It certainly wasn't the first time Izuku had had existential crises on the floor.

"Hey, Shouto, would you do me a favor?" he asked, rolling his head in his roommate's general direction.

"Mm?" Shouto said, unpacking his backpack and getting his laptop set up on his desk.

"I'm going to use one of the kitchens in the common area on our floor tomorrow to make brunch for Ochako," he said, finally sitting up. "I know Kacchan's lackeys will looking for me, so would you mind going into the hallway and pretending to tell someone on the phone that you're meeting me for lunch at the ramen place on the other side of campus tomorrow? It'll give me a little window of peace, I hope."

Shouto nodded as he pulled out his chair and flopped into it. "Sure, I can do that. I'm not certain how effective it will be, though – didn't Katsuki say he had eyes on you at all times?"

"Yeah, but I'll handle that part," Izuku said, wincing as he stood up. "Thanks for your help."

"Anytime." Shouto paused for moment, uncertainty looking alien on his face. "Hey, Izuku? About last night - have you ever - what's it called. When thinking about someone activates your fight or flight response, except logically there's nothing to fight _or_ fly from, so it's just pure adrenaline?"

Izuku met his roommate's pleading gaze with a blank look. "Adrenaline..? Oh! You mean like having a crush on someone?"

Shouto nodded vigorously. "Yes, a crush! That's what they call it. No wonder; it crushes the breath from your lungs, the focus from your brain — "

"Wait, who is this about?"

"Momo!" Shouto said, a helpless kind of anguish in his voice that Izuku had never heard before. "She gave me her number last night on a piece of paper with a small smiling face after it, and she's been talking to me all day, and she's just." He looked at the wall, eyes distant. "She's amazing. Clever, witty, wry, how had I not noticed her in my economics class last semester?" He folded over in his chair, hands in his hair, tugging at the roots. "I can't focus, I can't sleep, and all because of one person I just met?"

A sympathetic smile touched Izuku's lips. "Isn't that a good thing? It seems like she's into you, too."

Shouto's eyes widened. "What are you – where is your sense of _propriety?_ There are _proper ways_ to go about this, _official channels_ that must be taken. I wonder if I should contact her father first or wait to get more tangible proof she is also, as you say, into me."

This startled a laugh from Izuku. "This isn't the 1800s, you don't have to do things like that if you like her. Just talk to her."

"But have _you_ ever liked someone?" Shouto pressed, leaning in. "Have you, too, dealt with this wasting madness?"

Izuku shrugged. "Well, not really, but — "

"Then your words have no purchase here!" Shouto cried, bringing his head down on his desk with a thud. "Carry on, I'll be managing this sickness on my own somehow."

Izuku wanted to say something comforting, but Shouto was right about one thing: he really didn't have any experience to draw upon beyond cheesy 80s movies, so he just patted him on the shoulder. "I'm always here to listen if you want to run any of your courtship plans by me."

A groan was his only response.

Izuku left him alone to take stock of his meager pantry for tomorrow's cooking. An unopened box of Bisquick, sent by his mother, a half-full bottle of store brand fake maple syrup, and then a few eggs left in the carton next to Shouto's weekly ration of Soylent.

Okay, good. He had a menu. The guilt boiled up again, thick and tepid, turning his stomach to knots at the thought of what he was going to do to her tomorrow. He closed the mini fridge and sighed, the ghost of a proverb rising in his mind.

All's fair in love and war.

/

The next morning, Izuku loudly told Shouto he was meeting friends for a project meeting at a café across campus. He heard the telltale creak of doors being opened and walked out of the front door like he didn't have a care in the world.

The moment he was through, though, he ducked into the bushes that bordered the walkway and watched Kacchan's admirers race towards the path that led to campus. Just to be safe, he looped around to the back of the building and climbed to the second floor before walking through the hall to the stairwell; he avoided Kacchan's floor that way. His final stop was his room to retrieve the ingredients and the knife, which he grabbed before he had time to feel too badly about it.

Ochako met him in the common room kitchen, all sunny smiles and enthusiasm while the knife with her name on it collected sweat up his sleeve. "So, whatcha cookin'?" she asked, leaning on her elbows over the small breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the seating area.

"Pancakes and eggs," Izuku said, hoisting the bag of ingredients onto the counter. "Hope you don't mind boxed mix."

Ochako began humming under her breath as she discovered the stools along the bar spun, turning to rich peals of laughter as she whirled around a couple times and made Izuku smile despite himself. "Don't mind at all, Momma and Papa used to make it for us back in the day."

While she continued to spin on her stool, eventually crouching down next to it to see if she could make it spin _faster_ – engineers, right? – Izuku readied his pots, pans, and bowls. He'd deliberated long and hard last night about when he'd kill Ochako, and had settled on after they had both eaten. No need to soil her dining experience with a best friend's betrayal.

"Got any fun plans this summer?" Ochako asked from the floor, fiddling with some screws on the underside of the stool with the small toolkit she took everywhere she went.

"Just some internship stuff at one of the nearby clinics. What about you?" Izuku replied, dropping a pat of butter into the frying pan and turning on the stove.

"Probably goin' home to help with the construction firm. My structural engineering class gave me all kinds of ideas for a project they got comin' up."

Izuku smiled as he mixed water into the dry mix, a familiar warmth filling him at her words. Ochako was such a hard worker, filling up her schedule with upper level engineering courses she'd battered her way into after demonstrating her skills to an incredulous professor who had thought she wasn't 'experienced' enough to take them. All that in addition to the strenuous GPA requirements she had to meet in order to keep the full-ride scholarship she'd earned, without which she wouldn't be able to stay. "That sounds great, you better send me pictures of all the cool things you build."

"You know it! But," she said, pausing to peek around the bar at him, "I'll miss you guys here, too."

Anticipatory regret slammed into him with enough force to make him almost drop the spatula. But he'd made his decision, and Ochako would understand. She'd probably do the same thing in his position, and _he_ wouldn't hold it against _her_. Right?

The pan spat and crackled at him when he flicked a wet hand at it, so he grabbed the batter and poured in a few blobs.

He was just flipping them, lost in thought, when a voice in his ear said, "Looks good!" The skin of his neck pebbled in goosebumps at the feeling of breath so near, and he only had to turn his head a little to see Ochako smiling next to him.

"Oops," she said, reaching up to brush her thumb across his cheek, "got some batter on your face."

"Oh," Izuku said, trying to repress the shiver that threatened to shake his entire body. "Thanks." Except he could still feel where she'd touched him tingling on his face, and his stomach had begun a weird set of acrobatics whenever he met her eyes. Must be nerves.

"I'm starving," she continued, moving away to grab some plates. Izuku thought he'd be relieved about that, but instead found himself hyperaware of her presence in the room and marveled at how quickly his hunting instincts appeared to be kicking in.

Once the pancakes were finished, he added another pat of butter to the pan and whisked the bowl of eggs he'd cracked earlier, pouring them into the pan and stirring them to fluffy, custardy completion, adding just a bit of salt and pepper. It wasn't fancy, but it'd be filling and tasty, and that was all that really mattered.

Ochako helped him bring everything to the table in cheap Ikea bowls; the university stocked all the kitchens with the basics, but made sure most of it was dishwasher safe and not costly to replace in the hopes that people would clean up after themselves. If they didn't, at least it wouldn't set them back too much. Izuku filled a couple scratched glasses with water and brought them over, too.

They sat down across from each other at a battered wooden table that bore graffiti from before he'd been born, and ate. Izuku's eyes kept wandering over to her face, lingering on her mouth and eyes and the gentle roundness of her cheeks. He'd never noticed that she had little freckles on the bridge of her nose.

She interrupted his space-out by jumping at a buzz from her phone. Her face split into a huge grin when she checked it, mirth spilling out of her eyes as she shoved it into his face. "Look at this cat."

"Okay, okay, just don't let your food get cold," he replied, dutifully watching a looping gif of a very round cat try, and fail, to fit its entire body into a small box. "Wow, that is a large cat."

"I know, right!" she said in a voice thick with the tone reserved for Very Cute Things.

They ate in silence for a time, once Ochako put her phone back and poured so much maple syrup onto her plate that Izuku had to ask if she'd like some pancakes to accompany it. She stuck out her tongue, plopped a few pancakes into the sea of syrup on her plate, and began to eat while Izuku took his time buttering each of his pancakes before drizzling a chaste amount of maple syrup on top.

Then, as Izuku began to take stock of the knife up his sleeve and how far he'd have to reach to get her, Ochako said, "Did I ever tell you about the time I almost died?"

He was so startled that he just shook his head.

She nodded, looking back down at her plate while she pushed around a few soggy pancake ends. "I was only a baby. Born with a rare heart defect that was gonna kill me unless I got surgery. Problem was, not many doctors where I grew up could do it. Too scared, they said, too scared I was gonna die on the table, and they didn't want that on their conscience. But then," her gaze turned faraway, and Izuku had to resist the strange urge to grab her hand, "then Momma said my guardian angel pulled a couple strings, because that weekend, Toshinori was visiting my hospital. A nurse musta whispered something in his ear, because he came right up to my parents in the ICU and offered to do the surgery himself." She looked up again, a bleak smile on her face. "So here I am. I thought about writing him letters to thank him, but letters just don't seem like enough, you know? Letters, for my life."

Izuku's throat was tight. "So that's why you want to win."

Another nod.

The knife up his sleeve burned burned burned. There was no way - after something like _this_ -

"I'm not telling you for pity, neither," Ochako said, squinting at him with those clear brown eyes. "I just figured you should know, since you've told me all about what Toshinori means to you. Fair's fair."

"Right," he said, voice hoarse. His half-eaten eggs made him nauseous to look at, so he just took a big sip of water instead. "I'm really glad you're here." Izuku wasn't sure where the words came from, only that he needed to say them.

Something like relief flickered through her eyes as she said, "That makes two of us."

Her phone buzzed again, and this time she cursed when she read the message. "Sorry, I gotta run - forgot I had a tutoring session this morning. Thanks again for brunch!" She gathered up her things and started heading for the door, but whirled around at the last second. "Oh, wait, let me help you clean up some."

Izuku was already taking their plates to the kitchen. "Don't worry about it, it won't take me long. Go spread your knowledge."

She threw him a grateful look and bounded out the door. "Thanks, you're the best!"

The silence after she left nearly undid him. To think, he could have never known her - never known that straightforward kindness or that rich laugh, or experienced what it felt like to belong. Izuku swallowed the lump in his throat and finished cleaning up, thoughts wandering to the man Toshinori had chosen not to save and wondering why he'd been so eager not to give up on one life over the other. Shaking his head, he headed back towards his room with the vague idea of heading to the roof to study.

But when he was halfway down the hall, he began to hear groans and what sounded like drawers slamming coming from his room. A tentative knock ended in a yelp as Shouto yanked the door open, saw Izuku standing there, and hauled him into the room with a steel grip.

"You okay?" Izuku asked, noting his roommate's wild eyes, uneven breath, and the complete disorder of their room. Clothes were scattered across every available surface, and some accessories, too: watches, belts, _cufflinks_ , of all things. Izuku weighed the possibility that Shouto had asked Bakugou for a small explosive device.

The sound that came out of Shouto was probably supposed to be a laugh, but it sounded more like a growl. "Okay? _Okay?_ I haven't been _okay_ since Momo walked into this room two days ago, and now she's invited me to a 'kegger' this evening, and I have nothing to wear, and I have to, _I have to_ impress her."

Izuku considered some sort of bracing physical contact, like a friendly pat on the shoulder or a chest bump or something, but the gleam in Shouto's eyes implied that that would not end well. So he instead treated the situation like he would one of his elderly patients in pain, and made his way slowly to his bed to take a seat and seem less threatening. "Just wear a band tee shirt and some ripped jeans, you'll fit right in."

"'Fit in?'" Shouto snarled, looking over his shoulder from a low drawer he had upended and begun to paw through. "I have to _impress her_ , not blend in with the rabble. Do you think a button down is too formal for such an occasion?"

Man, Shouto had it bad. "How about a fitted white button down and those pants you said your father had sent from Italy? And maybe one of your watches, one you wouldn't mind if it got wet or stepped on or covered in strange substances."

Having a specific suggestion seemed to mollify Shouto, and he began to pack away the clothing that was strewn across the floor and over most surfaces. "By the way, you're coming with me," he added, as if he hadn't just been acting like a rabid animal.

"Do you not remember the whole _murder game?_ Being in an unfamiliar place with people who may or may not be trying to kill me doesn't seem like the best idea." Izuku paused. "Also, I've never been to a party in my whole life."

Shouto shrugged. "They also wouldn't expect you to be out. I'd wager you'd be safer there, where you're _least_ expected, than _here_ , where you'll have eyes on you. And you'll be able to be my, what was it called." He frowned at a pile of shirts. "Birdboy? Chicken wing? Man bird?"

"Wingman?"

"That's the one!" he cried. "See, it'll be perfect."

"Yeah, but how am I going to get out of the dorm unseen? Kacchan's friends will see me and either corner me or follow me to the party. I don't think I should go," Izuku said, frowning. He wanted to support Shouto, but not at the expense of missing his chance to win the game.

"Please, I don't know what I'm doing, I need you there to make sure I don't make a complete and utter fool of myself." Desperate eyes met his as Shouto turned and knelt before Izuku. "Please. I will beg if I must."

The image of Shouto with those haunted eyes, prostrate before him, brought back too many memories of the first months he'd known him freshman year, back when Todoroki senior held much more sway over his life. "Okay, look, I'll go. Just, never beg for anything ever again, okay?"

Vigorous nodding from his roommate assured him that no, of course he'd never do that. Izuku rubbed his temples. Tonight was going to be trouble.

"How about you invite Ochako?" Shouto said, taking an expensive-looking belt off of their stand lamp. "She'd probably have a wonderful time."

Izuku opened his mouth to disagree when it occurred to him this would be the opportune moment to use the knife he'd chickened out on this morning. He was taken aback earlier by her story, but so long as he could be sure Kacchan or his friends weren't around, he wouldn't hesitate again. "All right, I'll see what she thinks."

Shouto looked pleased and went back to assembling his outfit for the night, leaving Izuku to dig around in his pockets until he located his phone.

[[Hey, sorry to bother you during a tutoring session. Whenever you get a chance, do you want to come to a party tonight with me and Shouto? Momo's going to be there, and it sounds like you might have fun, too. Let me know!]]

There. Now all he had to do was see whether Ochako actually wanted to go, and he could plan his next move. He dragged out the first textbook he felt when he reached a hand under his bed, and pulled it open to one of his color-coded tabs that meant 'review section.'

So passed the rest of the afternoon. A few times, footsteps could be heard slowing outside of their door, stopping for a beat like the person was listening before they carried on. After the second time, Izuku said, "So, what's the plan to get me out of here without being noticed?"

"Oh, that?" Shouto looked up from his laptop, a juice pouch half-forgotten in one hand. "Don't worry about it, I called in a favor."

"Since when do people owe you favors?" Izuku said, eyes narrowed.

Shouto allowed himself a small, self-satisfied smile before looking back at his screen. "Networking, dear Izuku. Never underestimate the power of networking."

Ochako's reply came shortly after.

[[o yea, that sounds gr8!]]

[[i'll bring a lil somethin for us to pregame with before we head over]]

[[meetin at ur place, right?]]

[[Yes! How about around 9?]]

[[works for me! (sunglasses emoji)]]

By the time Ochako appeared, dressed in a few layers of tank tops and leggings with an artfully patched canvas jacket slung over one shoulder, Izuku was more than ready to get out of the room. Shouto had been fretting for the past hour over his appearance, asking Izuku what he thought about possible conversation topics and shoving his cologne'd wrist under his nose to ask whether it smelled all right.

"Y'all ready for some fun tonight?" she said cheerfully once she plopped down next to Izuku on his bed. "I brought a special treat that I think you're gonna like."

"Oh? And what might that be?" Shouto said with polite interest, gazing at himself in the mirror as he kept moving one strand of his bangs a few centimeters left and then right again.

She reached into one of the pockets in her jacket and brought out a small mason jar, marked only with what looked like a date in black sharpie on masking tape. "I snuck some of Papa's moonshine last time I was home," she said confidentially. "Figured it might come in handy for nights like this."

"Moonshine? Isn't that a little strong?" Izuku asked, the sum of his experience with alcohol being the little wipes used to clean skin before drawing blood.

"I've heard it is quite strong," Shouto agreed. "But it can't be much worse than a glass of wine or two. All right Ochako, lead the way."

Smiling, she took out two small shot glasses and filled them to the brim. "Who wants to go first? I could only bring two glasses, so we'll have to refill."

Shouto reached over and took one from her, but Izuku shook his head. "Ladies first?"

With a shrug, Ochako clinked glasses with Shouto and took the whole mouthful in one gulp. Izuku tracked the liquid down her throat, never noticing before how long her neck was, nor how strangely enticing her collarbone as it peeked out of her tank tops. He resisted the urge to trace a finger along it.

"All right Izuku, you're up!" She refilled her shot glass and handed it to him, right as Shouto began coughing convulsively. "Don't worry about him," she added. "Just take it down nice and fast."

Doing his best to ignore Shouto's wheezing, Izuku did as she suggested. He threw it behind his tongue as he'd seen her do, noticing for a split second that it didn't taste very pleasant at all, and then his throat was on _fire_. This must be what it's like to swallow hydrochloric acid, he thought as he joined his roommate's coughing fit.

"Why do people do this?" Shouto gasped a minute later, having found an unopened juice pouch and stabbed the straw in like it was an Epipen.

"Dunno, but let's do one more! I don't trust those guys to have anything hygienic to drink outta," Ochako said, already passing Shouto another shot glass.

Izuku met Shouto's eyes over the rim of the glass Ochako handed him, and shrugged. They both did their shot, and this time Izuku grabbed the juice pouch out of Shouto's hands to take a drawn-out sip after he was done. It didn't occur to him until Ochako took his glass and poured some for herself that their lips had indirectly touched.

He promptly filed that under 'information unnecessary to survival.'

"All right," Izuku said, clearing his throat a few times to get rid of the residual hoarseness. "What's the deal with getting out?"

Shouto smiled that enigmatic smile and took his phone out to send a quick text. Then he folded his hands in his lap and waited.

Ochako glanced at Izuku, who shook his head. A few minutes passed, and then a few more, and Izuku was about to ask Shouto what was going on when the floor began to rumble with what felt like a drumbeat, or something similar. It wasn't loud, not at first, but as it grew in volume Izuku was able to pick out a pattern and -

Why on earth were people stomping the beat to Queen's _We Will Rock You_?

"Ah, they've arrived," Shouto said, as if he heard the doorbell for a dinner party, not the foundations of the building quaking.

"Who's arrived?" Izuku and Ochako said at the same time.

Shouto's eyes glittered as he replied, "The distraction, of course."


	3. Gonna make a break and take a fake

When Shouto called in a favor, he _called in a favor_.

Packed outside of their dorm building, faces painted like they'd just come from a football game, were at least aone hundred freshman stomping and clapping to the same infectious rhythm.

"Which one of you geezers is Katsuki Bakugou?" yelled a freshman in heavy face paint. He'd started to speak in the small pause between stomps and claps, and the rest of the group fell silent at his words. The following stillness was heavy in comparison.

From where Izuku, Ochako, and Shouto watched, pressed against the roof after Shouto determined the coast was clear, it looked like a declaration of war.

Not a minute later, the front doors opened and Kacchan walked out with a small group of people, probably his inner circle judging by Mina's presence.

"You rang?" Kacchan drawled, hands in his pockets while he strolled over to the lead freshman.

To his credit, the freshman didn't buckle under Kacchan's baleful glare. "We've heard you like to dance, Bakugou," he said, attempting to stand a little taller. "But we think we've got you outclassed." The ground shook with another round of stomps and claps.

"Oh, is that all?" Kacchan asked, voice deceptively mild. "Denki, music."

His friend's electric blond hair disappeared into the building before reappearing a minute later with a large boombox on his shoulder.

"Dance?" Ochako whispered to Izuku.

"I'm not sure, he was always involved in so many clubs that one of them being dance wouldn't surprise me," Izuku whispered back. They watched as students poured from their building to form an opposing crowd, and Shouto silently pointed out the majority of Kacchan's spies. As a distraction, it seemed to be working perfectly.

A wave of freshmen surged into the space between Kacchan and the ringleader, and in their wake was a series of large cardboard boxes that had been broken down and fit together into a giant square. Bakugou kicked off his Crocs at the edge and rolled his neck as he walked to the center. He went still when he got there, eyes never leaving the lead freshman.

Mina took the boombox from Denki and pushed a few buttons while she pointed it at the crowd. At a nod from Kacchan, she hit play, and a throbbing beat snapped out.

Izuku's mouth fell open.

Kacchan moved with a vicious, feline grace, flipping onto his hands before tucking into a roll that sent him spinning like a top in time to the synth-heavy beat. He sprang back to his feet in time to do a neat side flip that somehow ended with him back on the ground, whirling on his hands while his legs hardly seemed to touch the ground. On and on he went, spinning and flipping like the music came from his own mind, his own heartbeat. The song ended on a rumbling bass note, Kacchan posed statuesque on his head, and time seemed to start moving again.

"Let's go," murmured Shouto, gesturing towards the fire escape on the other side of the building that would keep them out of sight.

Ochako seemed to have a hard time tearing her eyes away from the impromptu dance floor, but she snapped out of it at Izuku's hand on her shoulder. "Who'da thunk that rattlesnake could breakdance?"

"Come along, I don't wish to make my lady wait," Shouto said, impatience bleeding into his usually calm demeanor.

They descended the fire escape with varying degrees of grace. Izuku nearly fell over the edge when he thought he saw Ochako tripping and went to grab her, but she was just hopping to the ground from the first story. His body seemed a little fuzzy somehow, and things seemed a little blurry around the edges. Perhaps that drink was stronger than he thought.

From there, Shouto took the lead as they wove behind underclassman housing to a back road that would connect them to fraternity row.

"Have either of you been here before?" Ochako asked when they walked from the road onto a brightly lit sidewalk.

"Nope," Izuku said at the same time Shouto shook his head.

"All right then, listen up. We got some ground rules to cover." Ochako turned around and started walking backwards as she ticked off items on her fingers. "One: don't drink from cups you didn't pour yourself. Two: don't play beer pong unless you wanna drink a lot of shitty beer. Three: always have a buddy, in case you need an out. Got it?"

"Yes yes, understood, now hurry. We're already late." Shouto strode past her and headed for the loudest house on the block, a three level monstrosity with too much stucco and an ocean of beer cans littering the front lawn.

"Wait, who's your buddy?" Ochako yelled as he put a hand on the front door, much farther ahead than where she and Izuku set a less frenzied pace.

"I'm meeting Momo at the punch bowl," he yelled back, the music leaking from the house already making it hard to hear. "I'll see you later!" And with that, he disappeared inside.

"What about rules one and three - ! Oh, for the love of," Ochako grumbled, grabbing Izuku's hand and towing him after. "Boy has no sense of self preservation, does he?"

Izuku didn't get a chance to reply as Ochako yanked the door open and dragged him into the house.

Music assaulted his ears at the same time a confusing mix of smells made him almost gag. Sweat, beer, pizza, and body odor under a thin veneer of cheap cologne filled his nostrils, and he wondered why anyone chose to subject themselves to this.

"Want me to grab us a couple beers?" Ochako said, leaning close so she didn't have to yell too much over the music and sounds of merriment around them.

Her breath tickled his neck, and with her so near he could pick out her slightly floral, slightly spicy perfume. He found himself rolling it on his tongue - what _was_ that faint herbal tone? - before his brain registered that a response was in order. "Sure," he said, inching closer to reply and also catch another whiff of that scent. How had he never noticed it before? It was such a part of her, well, _her-ness_ , that he must have been half-asleep every previous time they'd hung out. He was about to tell her as much until he realized she had already left for the cooler on the other side of the room, and then the nagging voice that had been buzzing at the edge of his consciousness told him he should probably shut up. When he queried the thought about why it'd be weird to tell a friend they smelled good, the voice was silent, which Izuku took to mean that it was wrong after all.

"Here ya go," Ochako said, back with two dripping beer cans and two solo cups. "Better than drinking out of those grubby cans everyone and their mother have touched," she added at Izuku's questioning look.

She poured her own cup and set the empty can next to a small pile on an end table. "Cheers to victory?" she said, holding her cup aloft.

"To victory," he repeated, his gut clenching when her eyes sparkled in the low light. There was something different about her that he couldn't quite place, a feeling that'd been growing since their conversation at brunch and made more intense by the music pulsing through him.

Ochako tapped her cup against his and took a drink, only to make a disgruntled face. "There's just no helping shitty beer," she sighed, and took another grimacing sip.

Izuku sniffed his cup and was inclined to agree. He brought it to his mouth and took a dutiful taste, trying his best not to choke and splutter over it like he did the moonshine. At least that had burned away his taste buds immediately; he was forced to experience every sour, bitter note of the beer.

A surprised sound saved him from having to drink any more, and one of Ochako's friends shimmied through a group of polo'd boys to join them. "I did _not_ think you'd be here," she said, wide eyes flitting between Ochako and Izuku.

"Yeah, well, it was a little last minute," Ochako said with a chuckle. "Izuku, this is Tsuyu, I take physics with her."

"Nice to meet you," she said solemnly, holding out a hand that was somehow cold despite the heat of the room.

"Nice to meet you, too," he replied, frowning at a thought that eluded him about hands and tagging.

Tsuyu looked back at Ochako, and the beer in her hand. "We're about to get another round of beer pong going; care to join us?"

"I guess I can make an exception to Rule #2 if my partner is down," Ochako said, nudging Izuku's shoulder with her own. The contact sent ripples through the rest of his body.

"Sure, why not?" He took another sip of beer for emphasis, and something up his sleeve scratched his arm. It was then he remembered his job for the evening, but looking at Ochako as she laughed with Tsuyu made something in his chest ache. After a few rounds of beer pong, he told himself. Then he'd strike.

Tsuyu led them through throngs of people engaged in games and conversation; Izuku saw what looked like strip poker, strip Twister, and strip Never Have I Ever happening all at once in one of the larger rooms. They passed a few quieter rooms where more casual conversations were being held, and he caught sight of a few plastic wine glasses among the red solo cups.

Finally, they emerged from the kitchen onto an indoor-outdoor porch that was ringed by a group of partygoers watching ping pong balls fly across the fold-out table in the center. Plastic cups formed imperfect triangles at either end; the game appeared to be at its midpoint. Izuku didn't know anyone currently playing, but Ochako smiled and waved at both pairs with the polite familiarity he knew meant she'd taken classes with them before.

Together, they watched. Ochako explained the rules and common strategies and Izuku pretended to understand her while distracted by how closely she was standing. How had this never bothered him before? Why was it only now that every accidental brush honed his entire awareness to that single point, that one place where they had been a continuous line and were now separate?

In no time at all, or perhaps a little longer - time was harder to quantify, now - it was their turn to play. Their opponents were the team that had just won, Tsuyu and a boy with a brooding face highlighted by thick eyeliner.

"You ready?" Ochako said, rolling out her shoulders.

"Sure," Izuku said, not wanting to let on that he really had very little idea what he was doing. He kind of wanted more moonshine because that seemed to make whatever was wrong with him louder. Maybe if it were louder still, he could hear it well enough to figure it out.

And so they played. And played, and played. Izuku lost track of how many games they won, except that they _were_ winning. Maybe it was all those math and physics classes Ochako had taken, but her balls seemed to almost float into the cups. Izuku began to perfect something of a misdirection technique, aiming at one cup before firing at another. They played off each other well, too, Izuku's focused awareness of her allowing him to know when to distract the other team so she could sink ball after ball.

Eventually, Ochako laughed and pulled him away from the table to let others try their luck. "Let's go see if we can find lover-boy," she said, and grabbed his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world.

His entire existence narrowed to the warmth of her hand, to the small calluses that brushed his palm with enough friction that, together, surely they must constitute a fire hazard. It wasn't until the music became deafening that he realized they'd gone anywhere at all, and by then it was too late to turn back. It was also dim, most of the light coming in haphazard bursts when one of the people at the DJ table raked a mini-spotlight over the crowd in various pulsing colors. Despite the poor visibility, Shouto was easy to find given the large swath of floor space he had demanded by _Viennese waltzing_ with Momo as Lady Gaga crooned in the background.

"How's it going buddy?" Ochako yelled when they made to sweep by for the second time without taking their eyes from each other.

Shouto paused when he realized who it was, and his wide grin was visible with the help of at least five glow stick necklaces hanging around his neck. "Ochako, Izuku! You're here!" he cried, twirling Momo to his chest with a practiced flick of his arm.

Now that they were closer, Izuku could see his roommate's tousled hair and puffy lips. "Yes, we're here," he said, staring at the proprietary hand Momo had placed on Shouto's chest. But then Ochako caught his eye and made a small retching gesture, and it was so endearing that Izuku had to fight the urge to grab her hand again.

"Having fun?" she asked, giving the pair a few eyebrow waggles.

"Oh, the dancing is marvelous," Shouto said between breaths, hands seeming to trace the curve of Momo's waist of their own volition. "Why haven't we done this before?"

"Never thought it was worth the homework catch-up, I guess," Izuku answered. He opened his mouth to suggest that maybe they _should_ do this more often when the DJ put on a song that had the crowd whooping.

Ochako cocked her head, listening to a few beats of the music, and then _laughed._ "C'mon, Izuku!" she said, pulling him into the crowd. "I love the Cha Cha Slide!"

"The what?" he yelled back, but she merely dragged him closer to the speakers.

Her breath sent sparks skittering down his neck and low into his stomach when she cupped a hand around his ear. "Just follow the instructions!"

The whole room organized itself into a loose grid as a voice began telling them to clap their hands. Then he was sliding and hopping and stealing glances at Ochako to figure out what the heck a criss-cross was as the music directed them through a series of moves that thankfully got easier with each cycle. He was woefully unprepared for the command to 'get low' and ended up flat on his butt while Ochako howled with laughter above him, a spotlight grazing her face so he could see the sheen of sweat on her forehead and the dimples at the corner of her mouth as she continued to laugh. The sight made something click, summoned some truth that he knew he'd understand if he could take a moment to think about it, but Ochako's laughter was infectious and her hands were on his to pull him back up, and he stopped thinking about anything other than the now-familiar roughness of her fingers.

A new song came on that was heavy on the drums and bass. His hands were already tight in Ochako's, so he did the next logical thing and pulled her to him while the beat thrummed through him, demanding action. There was just the slightest pause, a moment of flashing lights and startled eyes before she was laughing again and leading him deeper into the crowd.

She took his hands, still in her own, and placed them on her hips. Her arms were over his shoulders the next minute, bringing that almost herbal, almost floral smell to fill his nose, and if he hadn't already been drunk, that would have done him in. It struck Izuku how close they were and how he could feel every twist and shimmy she made as she danced in his arms. Her hips were a revelation beneath his hands, so soft; he wondered how anyone could have teased her about being too fat when he didn't think he could ever, ever get enough of her.

The music pulsed around them like a living thing as one song bled into the next and they spun their way across the floor. Izuku lost track of what songs were playing or even if they were dancing appropriately for the kind of music that was on; his entire world became nothing more than where his fingers brushed her skin. Her loose shirt had ridden up and his hands traced sweat-slicked circles on her lower back, still marveling at how she could be so soft and so solid all at once.

Her hands skated over his biceps, his ribs, lingering longer with each song until she was pressed against his chest. "Hey, Izuku?" she said against his neck while the music became slower, quieter.

"Yeah?" he answered, part of him trying to catalogue the sensation of her voice vibrating through him while the rest of him tried to follow her words.

"This is nice."

He leaned his head against hers, lips just shy of her hair. "Yeah."

When he raised his head again, the room was emptying out, and Shouto was nowhere to be seen.

Ochako blinked blearily around them when she noticed Izuku was no longer resting his head against hers, eyes squinting like she'd had them closed for a while. "Guess the party's moving somewhere else."

"Guess so." Izuku stepped away from her, feeling vaguely lost, and bumped into someone's back.

"Watch where you're fucking going," growled a familiar voice, right as Izuku felt Ochako take a step back.

Kacchan turned away from Mina and blinked twice, a slow, Grinch-like grin curling across his face. "Hello, Deku."

Izuku and Ochako ran.

It was a good thing the crowd had dispersed enough to allow them to move freely, because after all the drinking and dancing, Izuku was feeling more than a little unsteady. He half-sprinted, half-stumbled towards the first door that looked like it led to a hallway, spared one glance behind him to make sure Ochako was keeping up, and took the first turn he could.

Kacchan's bellows could be heard from the dance room.

"We gotta get out of here!" Ochako said as they burst into the kitchen, scattering a group of red-eyed partiers staring intently at what smelled like bagel bites in the oven.

"I know!" Izuku headed for the enclosed patio where they'd played beer pong earlier in the evening, but it looked like Kacchan and Mina had made it there first. They were on the opposite side of the room, Kacchan snarling questions at people, when Mina saw them. "There they are!"

Kacchan whipped around, smiling that mad smile while he _flipped the table_ to better lunge at Izuku.

 _This is how I lose_ , Izuku thought in that slow-motion moment when Kacchan vaulted over the overturned table at him. But then he was falling back into the kitchen, Ochako's hand a vice around his wrist as she yelled into his ear.

"Don't just stand there!"

They dashed through the kitchen, skirting the breakfast bar to take the door opposite where they'd come in. It led to another hallway, this one dark with flickering light spilling out from an open door at the other end. Izuku could hear Mina yelling behind them, so he ran towards the light and prayed that the room had another exit.

Excited jeers turned to startled screams as they slid through the room on their momentum, disrupting what appeared to be some bizarre video game where Mario and Link were fighting. "Sorry!" Izuku yelled over his shoulder as they took the only other door available, and ended up at the mail hallway of the house. A staircase with a gleaming wooden bannister was up the hall on the right, so he knocked aside the couple making out with a muffled apology as he raced for it.

Ochako was right behind him, falling behind by a few steps while she fished around in her patchwork jacket pockets. With a grim smile, she dropped handful after handful of small rubber balls onto the floor as they ran, and Izuku hoped it would be enough to slow them down. Kacchan's roars could be heard amid the screams from the game room, and right as they reached the foot of the stairs, he screamed, "You're not getting away this time, fuck face!"

"Hurry!" Ochako cried as they scrambled up the stairs. Izuku paused, head swimming from all the sudden directional changes, so Ochako took his hand and pulled him down the hallway to the left. There were three rooms on either side, and Izuku was beginning to panic because they didn't have _time_ to determine which ones were unlocked or were suitable hiding places or-

"In here!" Ochako said, standing with her hand on the knob to the last door on the right, while Kacchan's loud curses at the balls she'd released floated up to them from the base of the stairs.

Izuku followed her in, hoping there'd be a window to the roof or something they could use to get away, when he finally noticed what they'd walked in on. A student Izuku didn't know was completely naked on the bed, blindfolded and trussed up with some rope into what looked like a moderately uncomfortable position.

"Becky? Is that you?" the student asked, his deep voice hopeful. "You always know just how long to make me wait."

Before Izuku could even _begin_ to come up with something to say to that, Ochako had opened the window opposite the door and was gesturing to him to follow her out. His fingers had just brushed the windowsill when the door burst open a second time and Kacchan and Mina toppled through. The extra adrenaline from seeing the uncut fury on Kacchan's face allowed him to scamper through the window before Mina could grab him, and with Ochako's help, he slammed it shut before she could wedge it open.

"Now what?" Izuku said, painfully aware of how slippery the ceramic shingles were and how they were on the second story of the house.

"Do you trust me?" Ochako answered, fumbling to take his hand.

"Of course!"

"Then jump!" She scooted them closer to the lip of the shingles, and he caught the glimpse of an in-ground pool before Ochako leapt from the edge and carried him with her.

Down they fell, the drop feeling like it went on for an eternity and no time at all as Izuku remembered to take a breath. They shattered the relative calm of the pool area, as most people were inside at this point, though a few people in glow stick-augmented floaties screamed when they dropped like stones into the deep end.

Despite being (somewhat) prepared for the fall, the shock of the water as it slammed into him _hurt_. A moment later, he came gasping to the surface, feeling almost sober. Ochako was already halfway up the ladder, hair plastered to her face while water ran in rivulets down her legs.

"We gotta go, they'll be comin'," she said. Her head shot up to the window that they'd just jumped from, eyes widening at the shock of blond hair that poked through.

"Nice try, losers," Kacchan snarled before leaping off the roof after them. Mina yelled something at him and disappeared back into the window, probably opting to come down like a sane person.

Izuku paddled frantically for the ladder Ochako had climbed and managed to pull himself halfway out when a splash like a meteor striking sounded behind him. They were out of time.

"You thought some puny freshmen could stop me?" Kacchan said, slicing through the water with strong breast strokes. "I wiped the floor with them before coming over. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd find you _here_ , though, pipsqueak."

Time, Izuku needed more time - !

"Katsukiiiiiiiii!" crooned a voice before a smaller splash echoed from the other side of the deep end. Red hair that must have had handfuls of industrial-strength gel to maintain those spikes crested the water next to Kacchan, and barreled into him with enough force that Izuku was able to drag himself out of the water before he was grabbed.

"Katsuki, Kat-su-kiiii," the redhead sang, propelling them both to the shallower end of the pool. "I missed you. Where've you been?"

"Not right now, Eijirou," Kacchan growled, fighting to escape the heavily-muscled boy's grip; Izuku had the vague thought that this must be _the_ Eijirou, captain of the wrestling team and two time state champion. "I'm in the middle of something."

"Ka-tsu-ki. Katsuki," Eijiro murmured, nuzzling into Kacchan's neck. "I learned that 'tsuki' means 'like' in Japanese, in the 'I like you' way. Your name is perfect, because I tsuki you, Katsuki." He started to giggle, still nuzzling his way up Kacchan's neck like they were alone in a room, and Izuku wasn't sure whether the flush crawling across Kacchan's face was embarrassment or anger or something else, but _did_ know that now was as good a time as any to get away from whatever fallout was coming.

He and Ochako clambered over the chain link fence surrounding the pool area as Eijirou said, sounding delighted, "Oh, you're still wearing my Crocs!"

They took off towards the street they'd come down earlier this evening, wet shoes squelching on the ground as they ran.

"This has sure been an exciting night," Ochako panted as they jogged back down the side path they'd taken from his dorm. "You gonna be okay the rest of the night?"

"Yeah, I think so," he said, despite the dull ache beginning to build at the base of his skull.

She kept glancing at him as they got closer to his room, and finally said, "Make sure you get some water in you. Couple a nice, big glasses, okay? And text me when you know Shouto's back safe - I still can't believe he abandoned the buddy system."

"Well, he had a buddy," Izuku started, laughing when Ochako rolled her eyes.

"They sure seemed to hit it off," she said, more quietly, as they reached the back of Izuku's dorm. Something like sadness flickered across her face, but was gone before Izuku could ask about it. "Sleep well, and I'm serious about that water."

"Yes ma'am," he said, hand lingering on the handle. Once he went inside, whatever had started on the dance floor would be over, and a small, fierce part of him didn't want to let it go. "I had a lot of fun with you tonight. I'm glad I went, even with, well, Kacchan."

Ochako smiled, the moonlight sparkling in her eyes. "I had fun, too. Didn't know you were such a dancer."

"Neither did I." He held her gaze for a long moment, following a drop of water as it trailed down her bangs and fell onto her collarbone. That was all it took to summon the roaring need to be close to her again, to feel her warmth against his chest or her breath against his ear or -

"See you tomorrow." And then she was gone, picking her way along the path that would take lead to her neighboring dormitory.

It took a tremendous amount of willpower to open the door and not simply watch her walk away, but he managed to get up to his room without too much foot-dragging. Shouto was nowhere to be seen, unsurprising given how enmeshed he'd been with Momo at the dance, but Izuku left him a glass of water on his desk anyway.

His phone informed him it was 2:30 AM. As if seeing the time broke some kind of spell, he was suddenly exhausted, and could barely manage to drain his own water glass before collapsing onto his bed fully clothed. He'd change into his pajamas in just another minute, after he rested his eyes.

/

It was the cursing that woke him up.

Bleary-eyed, Izuku sat up to see the outline of Shouto hopping on one foot while he muttered a more colorful array of swear words than Izuku would have thought he'd known. A glance at his phone said he'd only been asleep for three hours.

Since Shouto didn't seem to notice he was awake yet, he clicked on the stand lamp near his bed. "Welcome back."

His roommate squinted at the light until his eyes adjusted, then turned to face Izuku. The white collar of his shirt had a large red kiss mark on one side, the top buttons undone enough to show a few lipstick stains on his chest, too.

Izuku coughed. "You uh, have a good night?"

Something in Shouto's expression shifted, his eyes becoming sated and glazed. "Momo's lips are so soft," he said in an awed tone Izuku had never heard from him before. "And, she bit me." He brushed his neck, where Izuku could see small bruises forming. "I think I liked it."

"Okay, well, Ochako says you have to drink a lot of water," Izuku said, wanting to change the subject before the question of what _her_ lips might feel like consumed him.

"What is water to the taste of her?" Shouto sighed, finally taking his shoes off and moving the chair he must have tripped on coming in. He did swallow half the glass before sitting on his bed, gazing blissfully at the wall. "But you and Ochako seemed to be having a nice time together."

"We were just dancing. As friends do," Izuku replied, uncomfortable at how his stomach flipped at her name.

"You were awfully close for an _awfully_ long time for just friends," Shouto said. He peered at Izuku with unfocused eyes and grinned. "Oh, you have finally joined me in this rapturous purgatory! Tell me, does her touch ignite your soul? Are your thoughts haunted by the shape of her smile?"

"The only thing I'm haunted by is my lack of sleep," Izuku said, turning the light back off. Shouto's words brought that truth closer to the surface, where it tapped and knocked at his thoughts, but there was still enough alcohol in his system that he could resist it for a little longer. He rolled over, mindful of the vague queasiness in his stomach, and had just fallen asleep when his shoulder was shaken.

"Hey, Izuku, wake up. I need you to decipher these symbols for me."

Groaning, Izuku lifted his head from his pillow and glared at Shouto. "Do what now?"

Shouto shoved his phone into Izuku's face, showing a text conversation between him and Momo. "Why are there so many squares with question marks? Is this some new 'meme'?"

"No, those mean emoji are supposed to be there. You must have turned that keyboard off or something."

"Well, the only keyboards you really need in business are English and Chinese, so I don't see your point."

Izuku sighed. "Give me your phone." He tapped into the phone's settings and enabled the emoji keyboard. "There, you should see them now."

"But what _are_ they?" Shouto pressed, staring at his phone like it might bite him. "What do they _mean?_ "

"You can use them to convey sentiments and subtext that would be unwieldy to express in words," Izuku answered, digging past his exhaustion to reach Shouto Speak. "You'll figure it out. Now, it's almost six in the morning, and we both need sleep."

"Perhaps I will see her in my dreams," Shouto murmured on his way back to his side of the room.

 _That_ taken care of, Izuku laid back down. With a small grunt, he pulled his phone out to text Ochako that Shouto was home now. The room seemed to spin even after he closed his eyes, but remembering how warm she'd been so close to him helped. He might have failed to kill her tonight, but tomorrow was a new day.

/

"Izuku, help, I think I'm dying."

Sunlight lanced through the shuttered blinds to stab him in the eyes as Izuku rolled towards his roommate's groans. "You're not dying, you're probably hung over."

"How would you know?" Shouto moaned from beneath his pillow. "You've never gone drinking, either."

"I know because I roomed with Denki freshman year and he was always going to raves and parties. You'll be okay," he said, and winced when Shouto ran to the garbage to vomit. "Eventually."

A whimper was the only reply he got.

Izuku leaned back against his wall, fighting his own small wave of nausea, when the string of texts began.

[[hey this is important]]

[[i just saw shouto's dad get out of a shiny car and head for the dean's office]]

[[did u know he was s'posed to be here today?]]

[[warn ur roommate]]

[[he's prolly gonna need a lot of time to freshen up]]

[[i'll come over as soon as i can shake mina]]

[[she's outside my door but she doesn't know about the anti-intruder rube goldberg machine i built in the hallway :)]]

[[Shoot, thanks for the heads up!]]

He had completely forgotten that today was the day Shouto's dad was visiting, and judging by how utterly miserable his roommate looked hanging over the garbage can, he had, too. Seeing Ochako's name at the top of his screen made his heart speed up, which was weird, because hangovers usually didn't cause random heart palpitations. He had the dangerous feeling that if he thought about it too hard, he'd cross a line he could never come back from. Better to ignore it for now.

"Your dad's here." Izuku didn't know how to make it any less painful than it was going to be, so he settled on the truth.

Shouto rolled his head towards Izuku, unbridled fear in his eyes. "Oh no… That's today, I thought it was tomorrow, my head has been _useless_ with this _burning infatuation!_ " He took a deep breath and braced his forehead on the rim of the trash can. "There's no way I can see him like this."

Izuku ran a few scenarios through his head. "Maybe you don't have to."

A grunt told him to continue.

"I could meet him for you."

"Given your, ah, previous acquaintance, do you think that's wise?"

Izuku shrugged and began changing into fresh clothes. "We don't see eye to eye on a lot of things, but I won't let him try to demean you again. Especially not when you're already feeling sick."

The grateful look Shouto gave him was interrupted by another wave of retching into the trash can.

"Here," Izuku said, nudging the half-full glass of water on Shouto's desk towards him. "Try to get some of that down, I'm going to sneak out and meet your dad before he tries coming here."

"I'll try," he answered dubiously. "Is Ochako going to meet you there? Was she the one who warned you? After last night, I'm amazed she's awake."

 _After last night._ The words ripped open the thin veil on his thoughts from the hangover and his new worries, sending images and sensations cascading through his mind. He remembered how close they were, how much he _liked_ it, the smoothness of her bare skin. What little color was in his face drained away. He swallowed. "Yeah, it was her. Hey, tell me again what it felt like when you realized you liked Momo?"

Shouto rolled his back against the wall and hugged the trash can to his chest. "I couldn't stop thinking about her. I kept replaying the time we'd spent together over and over in my head, and seeing her name made my heart race and my palms sweaty, and seeing her in person sent the largest bolt of adrenaline through me." He chuckled weakly. "I thought I was dying."

Oh no. Oh no no no no. Izuku couldn't - he _wouldn't_ be in love with his best friend. Would he? The knife with her name on it was poking out of last night's shirt, and he pocketed it with a hard swallow. How on Earth was he supposed to finish the job when the mere _thought_ of her made his brain shut down? He shoved that train of thought away to where it would hopefully remain compartmentalized for the few days left in this competition, and said, "Okay, just wondering."

Shouto gave him a knowing look. "Last night might be a blur, but I do recall the look on your face when I brought up the dancing. Just give in to it, it feels marvelous when you do."

"I'm not giving in to anything," Izuku said, adding his phone to the pocket with the knife. "Try to have some Advil or something once you can keep food down."

"Be careful," his roommate said as he slid out the door.

It was just past noon, prime time for lining up at the dining hall to get the best pick of the buffets. Luckily for Izuku, that also meant fewer of Kacchan's watch dogs were around. A quick peek out the hallway window confirmed that there was only one boy watching the front door, which meant that the back door would either be similarly guarded or not at all. He edged out the back door in nothing but basketball shorts and a loose shirt, and headed for the Dean's office.


	4. Still got rug burns on both my knees

It was almost _too_ quiet as Izuku picked his way across campus, hiding behind bushes and taking the least populated paths. His phone rattled against Ochako's knife in a rhythmic reminder about everything he was trying, and failing, to repress. It was like the more he tried not to think about her, the more he did, until it was all he could do to keep scanning for potential threats while his hands itched to touch her. God, no wonder Shouto was such a mess!

He reached the building with no problems, a small stone cottage with perfectly manicured bushes at the front of the main quad. There wasn't anyone Izuku recognized walking by, none of Kacchan's friends or admirers, so he strolled out of the large bushes framing the walkway like it was a perfectly normal thing to do, and entered the building.

The air conditioning raised goosebumps on his skin as he sat in the living room that had been converted to a waiting room, pretending to be early for an appointment. Once the receptionist walked out of the room to grab something from the printer, Izuku slipped past the desk into the warren of offices in the rest of the house. If Shouto's dad was still here, he'd be in the back in the Dean's office, not in any of the smaller offices in the converted building. Voices rumbled from behind the door at the end of the adjoining hallway, one a deep, unyielding bass that Izuku hadn't hoped to hear for a long time. But for Shouto, he was willing to do worse.

Izuku was only halfway down the carpeted hall when the door at the end opened and admitted Enji Todoroki. The man flicked a bored eye over his clothes and said, "So nice to know my son is still consorting with the rabble."

Well, a hallway was not the ideal place for this conversation, but at least it was easier than interrupting a meeting with the Dean. "I've come to let you know Shouto's feeling a little under the weather today and won't be able to see you. Try again another time."

Mr. Todoroki narrowed his eyes, the only sign of his distaste. "And what makes you think you have any say over what I do with my son?"

Izuku opened his mouth to say something he'd probably regret when yelling erupted towards the front of the house. Izuku turned when Mr. Todoroki's eyes shifted to something behind him, and confusion turned to wariness when Momo stormed through the frosted glass door at the other end of the hall.

"You need to leave. Now," she said grimly, what looked like clay or mud caked in her hair and the burn marks on her lab coat seeming fresh. "Unless you want to stick around for when Bakugou gets out of my latest science experiment."

A not-so-distant roar punctuated her words.

Izuku winced, then said, "But how did you know I'd be here?"

"I can't let you fight all my battles," said a voice behind Momo, and then Shouto was walking down the hall with fire in his eyes despite his otherwise sickly appearance. "Go, I'll take care of this."

"But-"

"Listen to your roommate, he's a big boy," said Momo, coming to stand next to Shouto. She looked Mr. Todoroki in the eyes as she took his son's hand in her own. A raised brow was the only response she got.

With a final glance at Shouto, Izuku turned into the nearest empty office and opened the window. As he swung himself through, he heard his roommate say, "Hello, Father."

/

It was just a matter of cutting through the social sciences building to set him on a path back towards his dormitory that anyone who'd been tailing him wouldn't expect. But as he turned onto the small dirt pathway that would lead to the side of his building, his pocket began to buzz.

[[don't go back to ur room!]]

[[bakugou has the place flooded with his folks]]

[[momo said she was gonna test her new sticky polymer on him, guess it worked enough for him to be super pissed]]

[[i went to check up on him and the room was empty, but guys were at all the doors and windows]]

[[he must be feelin the end of the week pressure to win]]

[[come to my room, we'll figure it out from there]]

Heck. Heck heck _heck._ Her room. The room that belonged to her. How would he be able to focus when he wouldn't be able to get away from the sight of her, the smell of her? Izuku shoved those feelings back and turned around to take a stealthier path to her dorm room, one that would skirt the sight lines of his own. He texted her when he entered the common room, eyes roving as he wondered whether Kacchan would send boys into all of the dorm rooms until they found him.

No one stopped him as he made his way up two floors to Ochako's room, and on the first knock, the door opened. Ochako pulled him into the room and shut the door, leaning against it with a relieved look on her face. "I wasn't sure if I'd texted you in time."

"I'm glad you did; I was rattled enough after Momo and Shouto showed up telling me Kacchan was there." The smell of her was everywhere here, making his heart stutter and swell at the same time. He plopped onto the floor and hugged one of Ochako's giant plushies in an attempt to get rid of the feeling. "They're talking to Shouto's dad now."

Something in Ochako's face hardened. "You reckon he'll be okay?"

"I don't know, he seemed determined. I think we should trust him. It _is_ his battle to fight."

Ochako's frown matched his own when she replied, "I know, but I still don't like it."

"Me neither."

They were quiet for a bit while Ochako joined him on the floor, pulling over the body sized horse plushie next to the cow plushie Izuku held. She stroked the blaze of white on its otherwise black coat, and said, "Only one more day until the week is up. It was a bloodbath on the way to the library this morning."

Izuku snorted against the cow plushie's head. "I wonder how many people are left."

"Mm." Ochako looked away, a hand rubbing her neck. "Won't be long now."

Another moment of silence passed, punctuated by a few distant screams and the sounds of running feet.

"So," Izuku began, lifting his head. "How long do you think I'll have to wait until I can make it back to my room?"

"Depends on how stubborn Bakugou is." She gave him a look that seemed to say, _And we both know how stubborn he can be._

Her eyes were molten earth in the sunlight that filtered through the window, and Izuku felt the blood rush to his face. It was overwhelming, that gaze, and he had never noticed. He looked away towards the Lego coliseums she had built in one corner of the room. "You have some new ones?" he asked, to change the subject.

She followed his gaze and grinned. "Yep! I did the Roman one already, so now I'm working on a few others."

Small plushies were in each arena, armed with colorful pipe cleaners twisted into various weapons. Izuku's heart was doing that squeezing, swelling thing again at seeing such a blatant example of her personality come to life. "They look great."

"Thanks! You wanna help me finish the amphitheatre of El Jem?" She gestured at a half-finished project surrounded by loose Legos.

Now he was staring at her hands, those deft, sturdy hands, and told himself he said yes so he could distract himself by building and not because he wanted to see them in action.

So they passed a few hours finishing her coliseum, Ochako getting Izuku started and then going off to add details that required a more experienced touch. He snuck as many glances as he dared at her during those moments, struck by how all of her familiar expressions made his blood burn. There was the tongue tucked into her left cheek, meaning she was focused on something that required delicacy; there was the lip chewing, so she was considering her next steps. All of these tells and tics that had slipped into his awareness over time now blazed like wildfire in his mind, illuminating with devastating clarity a constellation of reasons he might have fallen in love with her.

He was so, so screwed.

"I'm going to take a peek at your dorm building, see if all the ruckus died down yet," Ochako said some time later, after they had finished the coliseum and christened it with fresh plushie warriors. "How about you call Shouto and see how he's holding up?"

"Sounds good to me," Izuku said as he dug out his phone. "Be careful of Mina, all right? She's probably just as frenzied as Kacchan is."

Ochako gave him a smug look. "Don't worry about her, I sent her on a wild goose chase on the other side of campus after telling a few people I'd be spending time with Tsuyu in her lab."

Yes, he had been very stupid to even think she'd need his help to win.

Once she slipped out the door, Izuku called Shouto. The phone rang and rang and rand, and Izuku was just getting worried when a clipped, "Hello?" sounded on the other end.

"Are you okay? How did things go with your father?"

"As well as can be expected. He tried to pull rank and money and all that other nonsense to get me to move into a private apartment where I won't be so 'negatively influenced by low-born underachievers,' but I told him to shove it and that I'd be paying for my own education from now on."

Izuku gaped. "Wow, I'm proud of you! Where did that come from?"

"Momo brought it up. We'd talked about our investments before, and she realized what I had been blind to - that I am over eighteen, and therefore steward of my own portfolio now." He paused, taking a breath. "He'd made me feel like such a child that I had forgotten my own strength. But you and Momo, and Ochako," he said, clearing his throat, "you helped me remember."

Izuku smiled, and let it bleed into his voice when he said, "I'm so happy to hear that. So where are you and Momo now?"

Shouto's tone turned serious. "We're at the room. But, Izuku, I don't think you should risk coming home tonight. The whole building is crawling with Katsuki's men, and they even have one stationed in every boy's bathroom in case you try to use one on a different floor. If you want to win, stay away. Where are you, anyway?"

"Ochako's, she warned me about Kacchan earlier," he said, sighing. "I guess I'll see if she can sneak me somewhere safe to sleep tonight."

"What if you and Momo switched beds for the night?"

" _What?_ " Izuku spluttered, the thought of spending the night so close to her too appealing to be safe. "Why would you even suggest that? What happened to propriety and proper channels and - "

"Screw propriety," Shouto snapped. "Propriety is what has held me back all these years thinking I was a burden to my family for not being blindly obedient. Winning this means a lot to you, you clearly have Miss Uraraka's best interests in mind; I don't see a problem."

"Okay, I - " he gulped " - I'll ask her what she thinks. Momo is welcome to take my bed, though you should probably throw some fresh sheets on."

A beat too late, Shouto replied, "One bed should be sufficient. Good luck!" and hung up.

Izuku stared at his phone for another moment, caught between embarrassment and respect. Shaking his head, he settled against Ochako's bed to wait for her return.

/

"You're not going home tonight," Ochako announced upon opening her door almost an hour later. "I looked all over the building, and all of the entrances are being watched. They have boys on every floor - "

"Yeah, Shouto said the same thing," Izuku interrupted, only because of the anxious look on her face that he wanted to smooth out with his fingers. "We spoke, and recommended I stay away for the night. Momo's going to spend the night in my room and, uh." He started to _blush_ , darn his stumbling heart. "And, well, logically and strategically speaking, it makes the most sense for me to take up her spot, here?" Why was he mixing a statement and a question? What was _wrong_ with him? "I mean, that is, if you're okay with it. It's ultimately your decision, and I'll respect it either way, and actually I can probably find a place to sleep in the woods on the other side of campus if I borrow a sleeping bag - "

She sat down next to him and nudged his shoulder. "Calm down, of course you can stay here. I'd never leave you for the wolves like that, and if Momo's gonna be over your place anyway, it works out perfectly."

"Are you sure?" he asked, a small part of him terrified by the relief that threatened to overwhelm him.

She rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't have said so if it wasn't true."

"So, uh, what took so long?" he said, desperate for a conversation topic that didn't involve the details about him spending the night.

She scratched her neck and shrugged. "I wanted to check all of the entrances and halls inside. I thought that maybe even if the outside was super watched, but the inside wasn't, we could stage another distraction and get you back in. But it's too well guarded."

"Thanks for trying," he said, and nudged her with his shoulder. Her answering smile was blinding.

"So, now that we're officially having a slumber party - " she began, a wicked gleam in her eye.

"Do you have to call it that?" Izuku interjected, feeling that cursed flush creeping up his face.

" - we have to do each other's hair and watch a bunch of movies," she finished, reaching for her laptop. "It's just the rules."

The thought of her touching his hair sent a shiver down his spine. The thought of touching hers made his fingers itch. "I don't have that much to work with," he said, running a hand through his curls.

"I was just teasin'. Now make yourself useful and grab that extension cord."

It didn't take long for Ochako to set up her laptop on a small end table and throw a cuddly pile of pillows and plushies on the ground for them to lie on. Ever the gracious hostess, she let Izuku pick the movie. He chose the first Avengers film, naturally, because who _doesn't_ like superhero movies?

The floor was quite comfortable with all of the pillows and plushies. Izuku leaned against Ochako's bed and left a chaste distance between them that she promptly destroyed, her light brown hair inches from his thigh where she curled up beside him. Now that they were settled, he noticed that floral, spicy smell all around him, steeped into the pillows and plushies that he was buried under. It was an effort not to shove his face into one and breathe deeply, if only, he told himself, so he could figure out the maddening mystery of that spicy, herbal undertone.

Ochako's knife poked him from his pocket every time he shifted, reminding him of his one job tonight. But he figured they could watch the movie first. Set the mood and all that. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, watching the light from the laptop flicker across her face, creating shadows that were gone in a blink. It struck him, again, how lucky he was to spend this kind of time with her, that she trusted him enough to have him in her space. With a swallow, he wondered if she ever thought about him this way. Not that it mattered, of course; he was more than happy with their friendship. But he still couldn't quiet the voice that yearned for _more more more._

The way Ochako would toss her hair and snuggle into the pillows next to him did nothing to calm his growing urge to touch her. Nothing scandalous or obscene, but he just wanted one small place where he knew that the line between their beginnings and endings merged.

He made it through the entire first movie and a dinner of granola bars and Dr. Pepper before his resolve crumbled. "Hey, Ochako?"

"Yeah?" she said, clicking around her laptop to get the second Avengers movie started.

"About the hair thing." God, he had lost his mind. Well and truly lost it. "I could uh, I know how to braid stuff? I was a Boy Scout once and I learned how to braid rope so it'd withstand hurricane level winds, and I could do that to your hair if you want. I mean, I'm not sure it'd be able to withstand a hurricane, hair's tensile strength is much weaker than nylon rope, and obviously we're not in danger from a hurricane here-"

Ochako tilted her head. "You wanna braid my hair?"

He was going to die of embarrassment. He'd be the first clinical case. But that strange heart-squeezing power was stronger than his abject mortification, so he nodded and hoped she wouldn't notice the flush creeping up his face.

"All you had to do was ask." She finished starting the next movie and sat cross-legged in front of him. "Let me, um. Let me know if you need a brush or a comb or somethin'."

Was her voice a little unsteady? Izuku wrestled the thought, and its implications, far, far back. Her hair wasn't that long, aside from her side bangs, so at least he wouldn't be stuck in this increasingly compromised position for too much time.

He had to cough to cover the small gasp that forced its way out when he grabbed the first section of her hair. It was soft, yes, but it had such _texture_ , so much of that quirkiness that was part of who she was. He braided it as gently as he could, covering a wheeze when he glanced down and saw the uncovered nape of her neck so bare and so close. _The neck is comprised of muscle, tendons, and bone that connects the head to the rest of the body,_ he recited over and over in the hopes of making it seem more clinical and removed. He had to start screaming it in his head when he noticed a small flush creeping down towards her shoulders.

A distant part of him despaired about why _necks_ of all things should be that enticing, but most of his energy went towards finishing her braids. If he spent a little extra time with his fingers in her hair, or accidentally brushed the space between her shoulder and neck, well, sue him.

Ochako, for her part, seemed to be enjoying the attention. She made little happy noises every time he brushed her scalp, though they were always followed by small coughs, so maybe she was just trying to get a piece of granola bar out of her throat. "Thanks," she mumbled when he was done, running her hands over them to check his work. "Well, fair's fair, so it's your turn now."

"What?" Izuku said, voice cracking.

"You heard me," she said, and stood up to rifle through a small box on her dresser. "Now scoot."

Deep, cleansing breaths. Izuku focused on his breathing like that one seminar speaker told them to, and almost choked because he was in the middle of her room where _everything smelled like her_. Wasn't he supposed to get used to this smell? Wasn't that _science?_ He was feeling very betrayed by his olfactory system when Ochako sat down behind him, and then he lost the ability to form coherent thoughts when her fingers started playing with his hair.

"Momma and Papa used to give me all kinds of dolls when I was a kid," she said while she gathered pieces of his hair and clipped things in it. "I'd always rip their heads off, though, so that's when they tried the Legos. But when I got older, I felt bad enough about it that I asked my high school friends to teach me all the girly stuff. Turns out it's pretty fun, too."

"Mm." He didn't trust his voice not to break again under her ministrations. Each tug made his stomach flip, each graze of her fingers on his scalp or the back of his neck sent small jolts of adrenaline through his system. Was it this bad for Shouto, too? He wished he could talk to his roommate.

"There," she said, pulling back. "Pretty as a peach in June."

He raised a hand to feel whatever she did to him, but she grabbed it and said, "Nuh uh, not until I get a picture of my hard work." A few clicks and a flash later, Ochako turned her phone to him. "See?"

For a moment he forgot about his burgeoning crush and the game he was trying to win, and was simply a boy laughing with his best friend. His hair was pinned to the side in small barrettes topped with white-polka-dotted red bows, and on the crown of his head rested a tiara with two nubby devil horns poking out.

"Tsuyu and the gang gave it to me for my birthday last year," she said as he touched it, still laughing.

"Okay, well, now that we've completed the ritual side of the slumber party, let's finish this movie." Izuku was careful not to disturb his new hair ornaments as he settled back against her bed. She resumed her curled position next to him, and Izuku told himself that she was just twirling her new braids because they were novel.

Ochako put on the first Lord of the Rings movie afterwards, claiming that it was still a story about heroes, just not ones with bright costumes. Izuku began nodding off midway through the second movie, though, so he stumbled after her as she grabbed fresh sheets for him to use on Momo's bed.

He started climbing into bed when Ochako said, "Did you think you were gonna wear those sweaty clothes to bed? Here." She threw him a pair of sweatpants and a soft shirt that said, "What did the structural engineer say to the architect? Nice buttress," before heading to the door. "I'm going to shower and brush my teeth and all, so don't wait up." The door clicked behind her, and Izuku found himself alone in her room with her clothes in his hand.

Face burning, he changed, folding his old clothes into a small bundle next to Momo's bed. Exhaustion pulled at his limbs while he wandered over to shut the light off. But the moment he flipped the switch, he gasped, because the ceiling was covered in glow in the dark paint. Small animals gallivanted around improbable building blueprints amid constellations half real and half-imagined, all glowing in the same faint light. His chest tightened as he imagined her falling asleep to this every night, outlining the product of her dreams where she could relive them every night.

He closed his eyes on that thought, letting the comforting smell of her detergent carry him to sleep. He woke once when she came in, though she was quiet as a ghost, and thought he woke a second time to the sound of her door closing. But she was in her bed when he awoke the next morning, so he chalked it up to a fragment of a dream and considered his next steps.

He looked again at Ochako's sleeping form, listening to her soft snores fill the room, and began to put his shoes on. The second shoe was halfway on before he realized he was still wearing her clothes, and the ensuing moral crisis about whether he should change while she slept resulted in him silently screaming into his hands before he simply crept out her room. Better to wear her clothes than risk her seeing more than she wanted, and besides, he was just going to do a quick perimeter check. See for himself how stubborn Kacchan was after a night of still losing his quarry.

A quick glance in both directions assured him that her hall was clear, and it was still early enough that no one had left their room yet. He eased his way into the stairwell, ears straining for the muted breaths or faint shuffling that would alert him to a sentry. But all was quiet, so he took the two flights of stairs down to side entrance and slid into the cool morning air.

Whatever Kacchan was planning now, it didn't involve crowds of his cronies swarming the grounds. Izuku still kept to the shadows of trees and bushes as he made his way back to his building. The front entrance looked unguarded, but given the week he'd had, he didn't trust it for one moment. So he backed away from his lookout position under a nearby shrub and headed to the building's forgotten side entrance.

Hardly anybody remembered it was there because it led into the cobwebbed basement, not directly to one of the main stairwells. Izuku allowed himself a measure of hope: maybe Bakugou had to deal with something else somewhere. Maybe he'd be able to sleep in his own bed tonight.

Traitorous thoughts about how nice it was to sleep in Ochako's room distracted him enough that he had taken one full step towards the rusty door before he realized someone was sitting on the ground next to it.

 _Kacchan_ was sitting on the ground next to it.

Izuku hopped back, prepared to sprint. But Kacchan just flicked a baleful glance his way before tilting his head back up at the sky. "I'm out of the game, loser. Go find someone else to cower from."

Oh. _Oh._ "I guess Shinsou was trickier than you thought," he said, trying to keep his voice conversational. Kacchan hated pity, but Izuku needed to know how it happened.

Kacchan's snort was full of disdain. "As if. Fucker was taken out days ago, not that he'd ever be a problem for me." He stood up and dusted off pants that Izuku noticed were regular jeans, and another look confirmed he was wearing a belt and regular sneakers. The game really was over for him.

Kacchan made to walk away, back rigid and shoulders hunched against some invisible affront, when Izuku called out, "Who stabbed you?"

Kacchan turned a gleaming eye on him and spat, "Wouldn't you like to know?" But as he stalked off, Izuku could have sworn he heard him mutter, "Fragile, my ass."

Once he was alone again, truly, blessedly alone, Izuku allowed himself one elated whoop. Kacchan wasn't after him anymore. He had to tell Ochako!

Her sweatpants were loose around his hips as he jogged back to her dorm. He was walking down her hall when it occurred to him that he no longer knew who was pursuing him. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he counted the steps it'd take him to reach Ochako's room at the same time he got ready to run.

"Izuku?"

Heart thundering, Izuku whirled around to find Ochako yawning in her nightgown with a toothbrush in hand. "If you need the boy's room, it's on the next floor up."

Thank goodness. He tried not to stare at her too much, a task made harder by her sleep-mussed hair and half-closed eyes - she must have only just woken up. "I'm all set, I just went to scout my building," he said, walking over to her. "I ran into Kacchan outside, but get this - he's already out! He wouldn't tell me who got him, but with it being the last day and all, I'd better figure it out quick."

A guilty look was the only warning he got.

The end of the knife was almost anticlimactically dull where Ochako poked him in the stomach, the rest of it clutched in the palm of her hand. It was attached to her toothbrush, and he hadn't seen it because she had covered it with her grip. A distant part of him was impressed, while most of him was coming to terms with the fact that he just lost the game by Ochako's hand. It wasn't as devastating as he'd thought it'd be.

"I'm so sorry," she said, looking almost as shocked as Izuku felt. "I just, I couldn't wait any longer. The deadline's today, and you were right here, and -" She stopped talking to cover her face with a hand. "I hope you don't hate me."

 _That_ got his brain working again. "I could never hate you! Especially not for something like this." He closed his hand around hers, still holding the plastic knife to his stomach. "You beat me fair and square. And now maybe you'll get to tell him in person about...about how you're still here. Also," he looked away, somehow more embarrassed to share this failure than to deal with his loss, "I've had your knife for the past few days. And I could never quite commit. So you earned this."

She blushed, pink and pretty and - oh god, he should _not_ be thinking about how pretty she is right now. "I guess you're right."

A beat of silence. "Wait a minute," Izuku said, the implications of his loss hitting him like a brick to the face. " _You_ killed Kacchan?"

Her answering smile was full of teeth. "He never saw it comin'. I slipped out after you fell asleep last night and walked right on over to him. I think he had a mind to question me about your whereabouts." She shook her head, but that didn't stop Izuku from seeing the smugness in her expression. "Was easier than shootin' fish in a barrel."

Izuku smiled at the thought, but quickly sobered when he realized he was standing in her hallway still wearing her clothes. "Er, I should probably change and give these back to you," he said turning back towards her room, but her hand shot out and clasped his.

"Um." Her eyes were wide, like she didn't think before reaching out. "That's, uh. It's fine. You can bring 'em to me later. I'm sure you wanna get some real food in you now that you don't have to worry about gettin' stabbed on your way to the dining hall."

"Yeah, right." She didn't let go of his hand, though, and his arm twitched with the urge to pull her in for a hug. Wouldn't that be pleasant - a nice, platonic hug?

The sounds of someone slow-clapping interrupted his train of thought. There, at the other end of the hallway, was a masked man who seemed like he phased through the wall for how suddenly he appeared. "Congratulations, Ochako Uraraka," he said in a warm baritone. "You are the official winner of the 2018 campus Murder Week. Your name will be added to the guest list for Toshinori Yagi's guest lecture this week."

"How do you know it's me?" she asked. "I accounted for as many of the people who were taken out before I got the people who killed them, but I never had a solid number."

"Ah, when you have friends majoring in computer science who have watched too many crime shows," he said, pulling out a plastic knife and tapping something along its edge, "you make do." It opened to reveal a small chip, but Izuku didn't know whether that meant GPS tracking or pressure sensitivity or what its function was.

"Okay then," Ochako said, blinking. "Are you absolutely sure it's all filled, though?" She looked anxiously at Izuku.

The masked man seemed to pause. "As of the last count, yes." But there was a smile in his voice when he added, "Though a strong will wins oneself many prizes." And with that he exited the hallway, the door barely making a sound as it shut behind him.

"What do you think he means by that?" Izuku said, trying to put his hands in his pockets before remembering that he was wearing Ochako's sweatpants. Why didn't they have pockets? It seemed a cruel oversight on some fashion designer's part.

She gave him a devious smile. "I think it means we gotta sneak you in."

/

Nope. No way. Not happening.

Afternoon sunlight shone on the floor outside of the small auditorium used for guest lecturers. Izuku paced, and then paced some more, because he was about to try to _sneak into_ an event involving his longtime hero. Even Shouto's emoji-laden texts couldn't cheer him up.

"Calm down, you're antsier than a horse in a hall of mirrors," Ochako said from where she was sitting on a low bench.

"But what if they ask for my name? What if they know I don't belong and kick me out? Right in front of Toshinori? I don't think I could survive that kind of embarrassment."

She rolled her eyes. "You won't have to. Just trust me, okay?"

People began to arrive a short time later, forming a line that snaked all the way down to the adjoining hall. When it finally dwindled to just a few people near them, Ochako took Izuku's hand and got into the end of the line.

"Names, please?" said a bored looking underclassman holding a clipboard.

"Ochako Uraraka, and this is Izuku Midoriya. I'm on the list, but Izuku is something of a last-minute addition. We ran into Mr. Yagi a short time ago and he asked for Izuku's presence specifically."

Izuku tried his best not to gawk at Ochako. _This_ is what she had in mind?

The student turned to look at him. "Is this true?"

"Uhh," Izuku said, fervently wishing he'd had some _warning_ so he could have practiced his lying face. "Yes?"

Frowning, the student opened his mouth to probably call his bluff when a booming voice behind them said, "Let the boy in! There must be room in such a large building for one more body."

Not daring to believe his ears, Izuku turned to find himself face to face with Toshinori Yagi himself. The golden hair he was known for in his youth was now laced with grey, and the chest of his suit seemed a little loose. But his eyes were sharp and voice steady when he added, "You'll have to let me in, anyway, if I'm going to talk to anyone."

The underclassman gulped and ushered the three of them in.

Toshinori Yagi had spoken to him. _The_ Toshinori Yagi. Izuku floated to the back row with Ochako without really seeing, and nearly had a heart attack when Toshinori _winked_ at them on his way to the stage.

Izuku's hand was clammy with nerves and excitement and post-dishonesty adrenaline, but Ochako kept holding it anyway. They watched Toshinori's lecture and joined the small group of students who wanted to have a more intimate discussion than the question and answer piece at the end of his talk.

They gathered at the front of the auditorium once the majority of the crowd had filed out.

"So, what would you like to talk about?" Toshinori said with a warm smile.

Izuku was still entirely too nervous to speak, so he let the other students ask about job prospects and harrowing rescues and things which, while fascinating to know, didn't answer his true question.

But the fact remained that he'd have to _speak_ to the man in order to find out, and that meant having a coherent train of thought mapped out. Which, judging by the overheated electronics noises bouncing around his head, wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

Ochako could see he had something to say, though. Once the other students left, she said, "Thanks again for coming to speak with us! My friend here has one final question for you."

Toshinori smiled again. "I was wondering when you were going to speak up. You've had a question in your posture since I saw you in line."

"Right, well," Izuku started, unsure how to convey everything he wanted to say. "On your blog post the other week, you talked about an old patient of yours who wanted to die, and you helped him do that. Was there really no other option?" He looked at his hands, now folded in his lap. "I wanted to become a surgeon like you so that I could be somebody's hero and make decisions that save someone's life. Why did you help that man end his so easily?"

There was a gentle sadness in Toshinori's eyes as he answered. "Son, one of the first things you'll learn about being a hero is the power of choice. Not everyone wants to be saved, and you have to respect their right to make that decision. Even if it hurts you. Even if it hurts their family. Because - " he reached out to pat Izuku on the shoulder " - sometimes the most heroic thing you can do is to help someone carry out decisions about their own fate."

Stunned, Izuku nodded. It felt like the Earth had shifted a few degrees beneath his feet, like something fundamental had clicked into place. "Thank you, sir."

"It's my pleasure," Toshinori said, and Izuku could see the years of hard decisions flickering in his eyes. It was a brash thought, but maybe one day Izuku could help Toshinori feel better about the weight of his choices, too.

As if he could read his mind, Toshinori said, "Giving these talks always makes me famished! Would you kids know a good place to grab a bite to eat?" He got to his feet slowly, wincing a little while he stretched his back. "It'll be my treat. I want to know more about what the future doctors of the world are like."

"And engineers," Ochako added modestly.

Toshinori smiled. "Who else will build us the hospitals of the future?"

Her eyes shone.

Together, the three of them walked out of the auditorium. "So, what do you youngsters have planned for the summer?" Toshinori asked as they headed for the cafe across campus.

"Well," Ochako said, grabbing Izuku's hand, "I think we're figuring that out." She gave it a squeeze.

The rush of the past week washed over him, the chases, the saves, the time spent with his best friend and roommate. Maybe he was allowed to change, too. Maybe he was allowed to dream.

He squeezed back.


End file.
